The “Open to Meraviglia ” campaign of the Italian Ministry of Tourism was launched in April 2023, with the subject of the famous Venere by Sandro Botticelli, a masterful tempera painting on canvas exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The planned investment for the international campaign on the web and characterized by large billboards is nine million euros and the Italian Venere, transformed into a modern influencer, will lead visitors from all over the world to discover the beauties of big cities and the most hidden and unknown of the Bel Paese, narrating the boundless Italian heritage of art, nature, and gastronomy. In summary: opening the doors of wonder to the whole world.
But, as often happens, Italy also makes itself famous for being clumsy (sic!): the promotional video of the advertising campaign, in fact, was shot in Slovenia by a Dutch director and is on sale on a stock image platform and the opentomeraviglia.it domain was not registered by the Italian ministry, which then saw it stolen by a Florentine marketing agency. So the Italian tourism agency had to run for cover and coin the hashtag #venereitalia23 for social media and the web.
Welcome to beautiful messy Italy!
