TOTAL FAILURE

Italian Tourism Ministry Ruthlessly Mocked for New ‘Birth of Venus’ Campaign

The Italian tourism ministry has launched an expensive advertising campaign that has been widely derided.

Thanks to a €9 million advertising campaign, Botticelli’s famous Venus has entered her influencer era—and Italy is not standing for it. The Italian tourism ministry has launched an advertising campaign turning the Roman Goddess from the “Birth of Venus” into an Instagram influencer, creating a profile complete with illustrations of her enjoying a slice of pizza and taking a selfie. The campaign “trivializes our heritage in the most vulgar way, transforming Botticelli’s Venus into yet another stereotyped female beauty,” according to Livia Garomersini, an art and heritage activist. Beyond the cringey appeal to Gen-Z, experts also told the Associated Press the campaign was littered with technical problems, such as a failure to secure domains, allowing anyone to take the digital material, which resulted in various images mocking the campaign.