Provocative advertising : Diesel

Abstract

The object of this work is to improve the knowledge about the advertising strategies of one of the most well-known, innovative and worldwide distributed Italian brand in the fashion industry: Diesel. I choose Diesel because this brand, founded by Renzo Rosso, has been under the spotlight for its attitude to make the most controversial and provocative advertising campaigns. Since the beginning, Diesel represented an upstream and innovative brand, following the leading of the owner Renzo Rosso who has always pointed out his belief in freedom and the willingness to do whatever he wanted without any filter. It is exactly this rebellious halo that is directly reflected on the way the brand advertises itself. Indeed, through the reconstruction of Diesel history I will examine its advertising characteristics and evolution in the years in order to figure it out whether those has a positive or negative response on the success of the brand. First, I will introduce all the general characteristics proper of the Italian fashion industry, in order to present the scenario in which the firm was born. Significant attention will be put on the marketing and advertising field, explaining how fashion publicity evolved and changed in the last decades. In particular, I focused on the advertising flow made by provocative and dumb images that can find its starting point in Benetton Campaigns by Oliviero Toscani at the beginning of the 80s. After this background introduction, I will present the history of Diesel, focusing on its international evolution from a local small firm to a multinational one. Stressing the values, actions and development of the firm has been useful to highlight and understand the winning moves that made Diesel such a successful worldwide case. Of course a key role in the growth of the company has been played by the founder himself. Renzo Rosso has been able to position Diesel exactly where it wanted it to be: a young and international brand addressed to young and bold people. Recently, Rosso added a crucial component to the Diesel team, the creative director: Nicola Formichetti. I decided to focus my attention on these two characters because they represent, at the best, the brand identity and vision. After the presentation of ”these two”, I will give a general description of the brand and, in particular of its Identity and beliefs. These are, as a matter of fact, core factors that made this brand grow till where it is nowadays, reaching the target that best suits it. What is even more important of this brand is that it does not simply sell denim products, but it suggests a lifestyle, someone you can be when wearing Diesel clothes. This lifestyle is the one proposed in the advertising campaigns. I will explain the deep philosophy behind the way Diesel advertises and how this philosophy has been maintained along all the history of the brand. Of course, the advertising campaigns changed through the years: I decided to divide them into macro historical section in order to clearly show Diesel reactions and moves toward the years. Eventually I decided to carry out an empirical research to see whether if Darren Dahl's theory about the effectiveness of provocative advertising in attracting people's attention was founded. Therefore, I submitted a questionnaire, created ad hoc for the purpose, and I submitted it to a sample. From this I have collected and analyzed the data that, even though they were not obtained from a statistically selected sample, they resulted as being very interesting. It has been interesting to see the different publicities changing and evolving according to the different historical contexts, world streams and circumstances.