Davide Campari was born in Milan in 1867. He is the first Milanese to see the light in the new Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. In fact, his father, Gaspare, has just taken home under its arcades and here he opened the Caffè Campari which in a short time becomes a meeting point of the city: all of Milan wishes to savor the Bitter, the liqueur created by Gaspare in 1860. In 1886 Davide took over the production of liqueurs. Davide’s first challenge will be to face the competition with other big brands. Davide immediately understands that he has to compete with new strategies. He decides to link his name to two products: Bitter Campari and Cordial Campari. But of these he wants to become number one. To achieve his goal, Davide senses that advertising can play a new and decisive role. For more than thirty years Campari will call together the best graphic designers and artists of the time: Hohenstein, Dudovich, Metlicovitz, Cappiello, Tofano, Sinopico, Diulgherov, Nizzoli … One of the most important collaborations in this period was that with the artist Fortunato Depero. From 1926 to 1936 for ten years, the austere captain of industry and the volcanic artist  form a couple as unusual as they are unique in their originality and inventiveness. The apex of their collaboration dates back to 1932 when Davide launched the first drink mixed in a single-dose bottle: Campari Soda. For this novelty that guarantees the quality of the product and protects it from counterfeits and imitations, Depero invents much more than a traditional advertising launch, it invents the shape of the product itself: the  cone shaped bottle still protagonist of our aperitifs today. The idea is so original that Campari and Depero decide to leave it without a label, because they realize that that shape, so simple, absolute and strong, speaks for itself. The message is inside the bottle.

director: Adolfo Conti

location: Milano, Sesto San Giovanni (MI)

year of production: 2020

lenght: 71′

INFO

a Doc Art  production in collaboration with Sky Arte, RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera, Direzione regionale Musei Veneto, Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce

Credits

written by Adolfo Conti  

executive producer: Amalia Carandini

cinematography and editing: Eugenio Persico

music: Pasquale Catalano, Fabrizio Romano, Giuseppe Sasso

producer: Ilaria Sbarigia

historical research: Raffaella Dotti

narrator: Teresa Fava

with: 

Tommaso Cecca  (Store Manager & Head Bartender Camparino)

Mario Piazza ( professor of Visual Communication Project at the Politecnico of Milano)  

Anita Todesco ( Galleria Campari  curator )

Valerio Varini  ( professor of economic history at the University of Milano – Bicocca )