I'm a copywriter. I spent thirty years as a creative director, but at heart, I'm a copywriter. I've worked in Italy, Germany, the USA, the UK, France, Spain, and Hong Kong. Over 30 years with international agencies like McCann, Benton & Bowles, Young & Rubicam, TBWA, Havas, and for global brands such as Coca-Cola, GM, Nissan, Colgate Palmolive, Barilla, Fiat, Peugeot, Danone, Scottex, and Toshiba.

I was born in 1953 in via Carducci 6, with my first marriage I moved to via Carducci 34, with the second to via Santa Marta, to via Cappuccio and to via Vigna. In short, despite having worked, even for a long time, in various parts of the world, I covered just over four hundred meters in Milan. My mother was my book pusher, and around the age of 13 she passed me a novel to read, of which unfortunately I don't remember the title or author, which talks about a Vandal, Milanese and copywriter. It's my job, I'm starting to cultivate a project. I read a lot, I write, I like it.

GGK. I started in 1972 in GGK, thanks to the lucky introduction of a friend who was leaving, with Fritz Tschirren and Hans Suter. Two great masters. I was 19, and I was very, very, very lucky. After a year of ads for Jagermeister, Swissair, Marcatrè, I have to leave to join the military. Upon my return I worked for Sergio Dabovich's studio, La Rinascente and Rizzoli Mailing, and gained a good experience in the first private radio stations in Milan. Radio Montestella and Radio 105. I deal, look at that, with advertising, interviewing singers, I host current affairs and music programs with the never forgotten Susy and thanks to that musical experience I got noticed by Alberto Cremona in MC CANN ERICKSON, the largest agency in Italy, the strongest on TV, which hired me in 1977.

I had a real copywriting job at an agency. And here's the second big kick in the ass. Alberto immediately put me to work together with Franco Moretti, the most senior of the agency's art directors, who had worked in Australia and England, the one who works on the most important projects. Three years of great things. Rex, Sip, Nescafè, Necchi, Coca-Cola, Martini & Rossi, Saiwa, Lufthansa. In '79 one of our commercials with Ninetto Davoli for Premium Saiwa was the most voted among all the works in the newborn Art&Copy Club, the father of the Art Director's Club. It would have been a Grand Prix, too bad that a breeze of democratic does not award the traditional Grand Prix, gold, silver and bronze. I discover the thrill of seeing my work broadcast on TV, I discover responsibility, when at Rex they explain to us that the money invested in the campaign for televisions is the last one, and that if it hadn't worked they would have stopped production and sent the workers home. I gain skills, experience and confidence. I also gain a great friend, Franco, who will be my teacher all my life, my companion in many undertakings, my brother. In 1980 the air in McCann begins to change. Franco moves to New York to follow Coca-Cola, people with no talent come in, I don't like it. Luckily for me, I work with Maurizio Marani, a very good art director, with a culture of art direction and doing like few others, and then a good person, honest and loyal, we will remain friends forever, we do important and quality things. But disturbing figures circulate around us, the corridor becomes more important than the drawing pad.

I go to visit Gavino Sanna who had recently opened Benton & Bowles and brought to Italy his ten-year American experience, a more effective and cosmopolitan culture of communication, style, energy and rigor unknown in Italy. Gavino is charismatic, highly cultured, with great visual talent. He is also very demanding, steadfast in never being satisfied. It puts you to the test, for me it's a treat.
BENTON & BOWLES. She hires me and five exciting years begin. Gavino and Arcangelo Fiorani confidently lead a group bubbling with energy, cohesion and competitiveness in great friendship and joy. Campaigns come out that get noticed, important assignments and prizes arrive. The agency is growing at an unprecedented rate. I convince Gavino to hire Roberto Fiamenghi, a very good art director I met at McCann, a friendship is born and a creative partnership that still exists. We launch the Fiat Uno, the car that will bring Fiat back to life. Then the Panda, then Gillette, Pioneer, Johnson Wax, Fisher-Price, Confindustria. I know Roberta, who will be the cause of my first and second divorce, wonderful partner and wife for over 30 years and superb mother of our two sons Tommaso and Bernardo, contributing greatly to making them the men they are today.

At the end of '84 Gavino received an offer to lead the creativity of Young & Rubicam, the somewhat dormant noble lady. He summons Roberto and me and brutally tells us: "I'll only go if you come with me." YOUNG & RUBICAM We become creative directors on groups of clients. Let's debut with a bang. Let's win the Barilla pasta tender against the strongest Italian agencies and let's get the ball rolling "Where there is Barilla there is home" campaign which will boost our careers, will make Barilla grow until it dominates the market (for the following 5 years, every year a doubling of sales, something huge and never seen before), it will inaugurate "emotional" communication and build the first storytelling of Italian communication. The campaign will become a subject of study in books and University masters. And it was only 1985. In addition to creating the Barilla campaign, I worked on Simmenthal (Tinsemmal), Soflan (Linus and the blanket), Colgate toothpaste (Umberto Orsini), Ariston Margherita (The washing machine with a woman's name), Danone, Brionvega, Johnson's & Johnson's. I happen to work on projects in other countries and I find that I really like it. I like to remember among the many things that I know during my frequent stays in New York Jay Chiat, we become friends and I hang out at his house. It's a wonderful season in Y&R, lasting friendships are created, we realize that we are a reference group, we are highly rewarded in Italy and abroad. Let's divide: who loves us, who hates us, it's part of the game. Those who don't appreciate style, that doesn't adapt to the academy but create a new one, smoke a little for successes. In private they compliment us (you never know), in public, secretly, they whistle at us. Y&R is growing rapidly thanks to the magical moment triggered by the campaigns and the excellent work of everyone, driven by a marvelous commitment . We do superb work for Soflan, Dinamo, Toothpastes, Soap Bar Colgate Palmolive, which is reported by Colgate managers and American Y&R mega bosses as a benchmark for all other Colgates and Y&Rs in the world. All thanks to a friendly and tremendously effective partnership with Carlo D'Innella, Stefano Del Frate, Anna Giulia di Francesco and creative teams of great value and experience (all the signatures in the campaigns). Much later I would discover that Y&R in those years from 1984 to 1988 was a gold mine. Our profits/turnover as a company were second in Italy only to Mattel. In 1987 Tommaso was born and everything became a different, more beautiful construction.

TBWA. In '88 I get an offer to drive, this time as number one, the creativity of a very titled agency: TBWA. Milan, Rome, Padua. I become a partner of TBWA Italia and then also of TBWA International. Gavino Sanna insists on his habit of stealing the campaigns of his best creatives and signing them as if they were his own. Without shame, without modesty. Awkward bonuses and international missions they can no longer overcome their anger over the thefts. I'm taking this opportunity and leaving Y&R. After a few months I bought a double page in the most well-known newsletter in the sector and told it with a long advert what really happened around our campaigns, entitled NOW ENOUGH. Anyone who wants can read the advert here among my press campaigns, 1988. Y&R denounces my new agency and me for unfair competition to the ASSAP arbitrators. They investigate for months and question everyone. They absolve me and TBWA. I had written only and only the truth. Consequently, the one who lied was Gavino. In TBWA they were hardworking, intense years, beautiful, difficult. 4 partners, an office with 4 desks (but I also kept my real office on the creative department floor) and above all 4 different agendas. But we do important things. The launch of Ikea in Italy, mainly due to the Swedish genius of Anders Weinar, complex work for Henkel Dixan and Seat, Rover, Land Rover cars, Range Rover, Coop, Scottex (I bring home a puppy from a shooting Female Labrador, Maui, who will be the joy of my family for 13 years), Boario, Fattoria Scaldasole. But the project I remember most fondly is a campaign for laptops Toshiba, created by Fabrizio Granata and Pietro Maestri with the title "Pensiero Libero" and a gallery of characters who have innovated in their field throughout history, from Mozart to the Wright Brothers to Marie Curie, 8 years before she appeared, practically identical, in Apple's "Think Different". A case? I think not, as TBWA and Chiat/Day later merged and each other's campaigns circulated. Even the two titles seem like two ways of saying the same thing. Another clue? None of the ten characters chosen by us enter the Apple campaign. In 1991 Bernardo was born and everything became an even different and even more beautiful construction.

MC CANN ERICKSON FRANKFURT. At the end of '92 Franco Moretti made me the end of the world proposal, at least for me: to move to Frankfurt to be the executive creative director as senior vice president of the GM/Opel worldwide group. That is, I have responsibility for Opel's creative product, Saab and all American brands of GM (Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, GMC Trucks) worldwide except the United States. Our children are small, Roberta doesn't intend to move to Frankfurt, so I move into a house there and I promise to return to Milan every weekend. wherever I was on the planet, I'll have it written in the contract. I broke the promise only once in two years, I was in Sao Paulo, Brazil and GM decided to have a presentation on Saturday. For the rest, Tommaso and Bernardo every Saturday morning (early!) they jumped into our large bed in Milan or in the Engadine where they practically lived, with the certainty of finding me all for them, and in the evening they fell asleep with my recorded voice reading them a lot of fairy tales (thank you Fisher-Price for that precious red cassette player!). My responsibility for the creative product for the General Motors group concerns more than 50 countries, Germany takes me on, the parent company is in Detroit, my boss in Detroit, General Motors Europe in Zurich, the family in Milan, customers between Frankfurt/Russelsheim, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Madrid etc. I live on a plane. A complex, difficult, wonderful job. In Frankfurt the group has 50 people, a battery of faxes hammers us with requests from the markets every 6 minutes. I participate at global launches, I discover the gigantic tension that accompanies these operations which begin one/two years before the launch and which, if unsuccessful, can bring the accounts of enormous multinationals to their knees; I'm trying to move a conservative giant, but I'm working for the largest company in the world, in the most important market in the world, and with projects that make me proud.

However, 1994 was about to reserve one of the tastiest satisfactions of my entire life. I was chatting with Elio Di Pace and the Havas group about an interesting project. It was a complex thing. It was about becoming shareholders of an agency created together, and as we know, for the French to give up shares of a company to an Italian was like tearing out pieces of their liver. It went on for a long time, not bad, I was always traveling around the world, concrete of course. I have kept the boarding pass coupons from that period, they take up half a drawer in my desk. A certain John Leonard calls me, CEO of BBDO in Italy, a very affable and nice guy, motorcyclist, Guzzi enthusiast, he has a rare and beautiful 1000 Daytona i.e. we understand each other. For weeks he illustrates a proposal to me, let's move on, we'll arrive to the details, I didn't mind having a good alternative to the French. After perhaps a couple of months of pleasant conversations and breakfasts in Milan with John, he calls me all contrite and embarrassed, to tell me that none other than the legendary and fearsome Phil Duesenberry, ECD of BBDO worldwide, without knowing me had rejected my candidacy, saying that no Italian could ever live up to a job ECD desk in a BBDO office. I think: fuck Phil Duesenberry and continue my work. A month passes. Morning, I'm at my desk in Frankfurt, the phone rings. "Good morning Andrea, I'm Judy Wald." Stomach sinking. Judy Wald was the legendary, tough and coveted, most important headhunter for New York's top creatives. Everyone dreamed of receiving a call from him. She passed away in 2021 at 96 years old. "Andrea, would you be interested in taking over the creative direction of an international agency in Milan?" "Thank you Mrs Wald, we can talk about it, I must tell you in fairness that I have open contacts with Havas and BBDO." Silence. "This is a surprise, Andrea, It's precisely BBDO that I want to talk to you about." I'm enjoying myself like a steam train, I'm pronouncing the words. "Dear Mrs. Judy Wald, then do me a favor, tell Phil Duesenberry that he can look wherever he wants, but he has to pass by my desk. Have a nice day." I put it down, I don't think I had a real orgasm, but certainly something that was very similar to it.

EUROCOM, CONCATO, OF PEACE. Despite the adrenaline, thinking about my family and not becoming a fat flying manager, when at the end of '94 Elio Di Pace proposed that I open an agency in Milan with him and the Havas group, I say yes. Eurocom, Concato, Di Pace was born in 1995. Putting your name on the door in the US is considered a breakthrough, I think so too. We have important customers, Peugeot, Essilor and Chanel, we win important pitches, Eberhard, Yamaha, Ravizza, Telesystem, but above all we won the tender for Telepiù (Italian branch of Canal Plus, now Sky). But Havas wants to merge us with RSCG Mezzano, Mignani, Costantini. We don't fit. Not even the Telepiù client is happy.

DI PACE, CONCATO & PARTNERS. So in 1998 and only the Telepiù client we opened Di Pace, Concato & Partners. Soon Eberhard and Yamaha join us. But above all we win important races: Nissan first Micra, then all the cars and dealers, D+ which represents the digital satellite offer of Telepiù, Harley-Davidson, Royal Insurance, we do the campaigns for the listing of Dada and ePlanet. We grow at crazy rates, we are the second fastest growing agency in Italy. In 2001 two bad news: Telepiù opens a tender but in reality it is preparing to sell to Sky and Nissan which sells to Renault and concentrates all the budgets in a single international agency. We are forced to close.

ANDREA CONCATO. I courageously took with me a group of excellent talents from the agency and opened Andrea Concato. My small agency will live for several years, working for important client friends, such as Chanel, Casino di Sanremo, Vorwerk, Puglissima, Rainbow, La Stampa, Gruppo Modi & Moda, Arfango, Bonora, with campaigns and consultancy, my peaceful and independent oasis, and it will show me that I do not possess the characteristics of a self-employed entrepreneur. Negotiating contracts and requesting payments are things that make me feel unwell and sometimes even break out in hives.

LONGARI & LOMAN. From 2007 to 2013 I also helped as executive creative director a former glorious agency in Bologna, Longari & Loman, to make a leap in quality and move from small below the line operations for local clients to important campaigns for national and international clients. 35 new customers in the period, from 15 to 50 people, we win competitions against multinationals. A lot of satisfaction. When the task is exhausted and I return permanently to Milan, I am happy to receive a phone call asking me if I could do for a Milanese agency what I had done in Bologna.

For another three years I worked as chief operating officer and chief creative director with this group of agencies that are rapidly evolving in size and quality, which I call TRUE COMPANY. The agency goes from 5 different companies to 1 holding company, from below the line for unknown brands to important clients, or who become important players with the agency's work and with large campaigns in every medium.

SOCIAL VALUE. In 2016, together with friends Alberto Contri and Roberto Fiamenghi, I opened a strategic and creative consultancy company dedicated to the reputation and social responsibility of major brands , in a relationship with the boards. We boast that we have 140 years of experience between us, in every market. It works, important assignments and exciting stories arrive. The age of exhausting and inconclusive meetings where small managers without culture cannot make any decisions because they lack powerwith marketing departments, is over for us. We start working with the boards, the shareholders, the top managers. We understand each other better, we get quicker. We also allow ourselves the luxury of challenging and beating the most important, very expensive, international, American, dedicated to the reputation of brands. Our exciting activity is interrupted at the end of 2020 due to personal crises of my two partners and I continue to work as a consultant alone.

I had already done it in 2017, during my life of our society, campaigning for the relaunch of BENETTON after a series of marketing errors were about to put it in danger. Executive President (Francesco G.) e CEO (Marco A.) called me to straighten out the situation. I was happy. After Fiat and Barilla I worked for this third champion of Made in Italy. Let's fix the problems and prepare the new campaign. Everything was ready. The request for 2018 was: " On Spring on the walls, all over the world". The campaign was beautiful and also featured an annual fashion show event (a first for the brand) p.r. with the invitation of international fashion journalism to the hot places of the planet, where East and West meet. (today it would no longer be possible). That was the real comeback of United Colors of Benetton, the original creative fruit of Bruno Suter and his Eldorado in Paris. Production planned on the five continents exclusively on large billboards city. To make us forget, first of all in the USA, the embarrassing past, I had drawn up a contract with two photographers with Biba Giacchetti of SudEst 57. The most celebrated in the world, Steve McCurry, and a young woman with a crazy talent for the feminine, Malena Mazza. Filmmaster Events had planned with me the most complex Shooting & Events operations in the four corners of the globe with the local services ready. Thank you forever Giorgio Marino, for this and much more, also thinking about the past, to Sergio and Stefano. But at that moment Luciano Benetton decided to return to the company and he reset everything, top management and myself included, calling Toscani back, forgetting the detail that the photographer was solely responsible for the loss of the American market which was worth 35% of the turnover. Sin. I don't deny that I would have liked to end my creative career with such a beautiful and important campaign. C'est la vie. Best wishes Mr. Luciano, seen from today, it was not the happiest choice...

I continue to act as a consultant for the boards of large companies, in the automotive, industrial, banking, fashion, food, financial with the aim of improving their reputation, organisation, brand design and commercial performance, with effects on the share price. It's my life and my passion. We are now. I decide to put together this site. With me Tommaso with his enormous ability and experience, Bernardo with the precious rationality that I lack and all his special sensitivity, Thank you Bernardo and Tommaso. And as throughout my life, I have the expert and brilliant head of Giulio, who has always been a brother more than a cousin, born and raised together, at every stage. And so on. Thanks Giulio.