Peroni Nastro Azzurro Is ‘ONLY’ an Italian Icon in McCann’s Global Platform for the Beer Brand
Peroni Nastro Azzurro, the world’s number-one premium Italian lager, has launched its new global platform, “ONLY”. Created by McCann London, the platform positions the brand as a stylish, Italian icon of the beer category, defying category conventions to bring boldness and iconicity back to the brand. Because, as the Peroni family said at its launch in 1963: “Peroni Nastro Azzurro is more than a beer, it’s an Italian masterpiece”.
The platform launches with a campaign that places Peroni Nastro Azzurro shoulder to shoulder with Italy’s legendary cultural symbols – the Trevi Fountain, The Birth of Venus, and Scuderia Ferrari. Inspired by the charming Italian habit of downplaying something that is clearly perfect, each masterpiece is described as “ONLY a fountain”, “ONLY a painting”, and “ONLY a car”. After all, as Michelangelo once said: “I only removed everything that wasn’t David”, and as Enzo Ferrari once said: “I only take engines and attach wheels to them”. The launch film was directed by French filmmaker Fleur Fortuné.
McCann London’s creative directors Rob Webster and Alexei Berwitz told LBB more about how they wanted to get back to the brand’s inherent style and sophistication with the new platform.
“When Peroni Nastro Azzurro first landed in the UK, it behaved more like a fashion or luxury brand – simple, confident, and really different from what other beers were doing,” they said.“They were one of the first to bring experiential advertising to the category with the ‘House of Peroni’, which felt very much like a fashion house.
“At the time, other brands had very different, often mass-market, comedy-driven advertising. But over time, the category got flooded and brands slipped into a very generic space. You know the trope: friends meeting up in a sunlit location, having a good time… it’s everywhere and can feel a bit bland.”
That’s where ‘ONLY’ was born, the creative directors revealed. “It came directly from their pitch brief to us to bring back some of that iconicity and put Peroni back in a category of its own.
“‘ONLY’ as a word isn't just about saying ‘we’re the only one’. It’s about having a singular attitude to how we behave. Being single-minded, effortless, confident – it sums up so many aspects of Italian style and iconicity in one word, which was a brilliant starting point.”
‘ONLY’ won the pitch for McCann London, so the team were starting from a totally clean slate. Rob and Alexei explained, “It was really refreshing to work with a team that is so driven, so committed to ensuring the work remained as simple, iconic, and true to the heritage of the brand as possible. They kept us really honest in that way.”
Behind the scenes of the filming process for the ad, there were certainly challenges to overcome. The pair told LBB, “The central theme for the TVC was to take Italian icons and place Peroni Nastro Azzurro – an icon in its own right – shoulder to shoulder with these pieces of culture. Rather than placing them in their natural environment, we wanted to put them within an abstract colonnade and create a frameable device that felt ownable to Peroni Nastro Azzurro. In the treatment stage, with our director Fleur, we came up with this concept of shadow seeping through the pillars of the colonnade. This would bring animation to the icons, making them feel fresh, alive, and giving a modern treatment to these timeless works of art. We needed a director with a particularly elevated visual look to their work to sew together the icons and Peroni Nastro Azzurro so elegantly, and Fleur has a unique ability to capture that.
“Filming at the Trevi Fountain was heavily restricted,” the pair continued. “It took about six months of negotiation just to secure one hour of filming, and that was pre-9 am. It wasn’t perfect because we really wanted sunshine and better light to create the shadow effect we were looking for, and on the day, it was pouring with rain! But we managed to shoot little moments in between the downpours and captured enough stills and elements to pull the campaign together.
“Because it was teeming with rain, it was crucial that we worked hand-in-hand with the Post team on set to make sure the elements we were filming were usable. In fact, the director was taken ill on the last day, which left us with the DOP for the final afternoon, but he did an amazing job.”
In spite of the unsavoury weather conditions and other difficulties the creative team were inspired by a cryptic message left by an unknown hand. “On the way between two of the sets, after we thought we might have missed our slot, we saw an Italian quote carved in the stone: ‘NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI’, which translates to: ‘Nothing is difficult for the one who wants it’ or ‘nothing is impossible for the one who is willing’. We found a way, and that really became a motto for the shoot.”
The global campaign spans experience, activations, social, influencer partnerships, sponsorships, above-the-line and on- and off-trade activity. It launches on March 20th in the UK across AV, social and below-the-line, with further activity including iconic OOH sites to follow. Additional markets will roll out in the coming months, including the Republic of Ireland and Italy at the end of April, marking the start of a global campaign. A consumer PR event will take place in London later this spring, building on the success of Peroni Nastro Azzurro and McCann’s Fontana di Peroni Christmas activation on the Southbank.
The platform is elevated further by a new clean and contemporary brand world, created in partnership with brand-led strategy and design studio FutureBrand. The new aesthetic connects every channel cohesively, from advertising to on-and off-trade. The brand world uses a confident, stylish graphic approach, clean white space, an effortless photographic art direction, and Peroni Nastro Azzurro’s distinctive blue.
