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The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence and influence of US advertising in Italy between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence and influence of US advertising in Italy between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s.

The paper argues that there is a need to further qualify and deconstruct the notion of “Americanization” by integrating the now well-established notions of “hybridization” and “mediation” with more specific attention to the competing “hearts and souls”, the different strategies and discursive practices that different individual actors (American, British and Italian) operating within the Italian advertising business tried to instil into goods and consumers and the economic and cultural results that they achieved.

This is the first research on the history of Italian advertising that fully places it within a transnational and comparative perspective using so far unpublished records, aiming at moving beyond traditional, eastbound Americanization frameworks through a detailed empirical investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the Americanization of European advertising in the post‐war years as a phenomenon of cultural transfer and it aims to explore the interaction between the USA and Italian advertising traditions during the 1950s and the 1960s.

The analysis is in two parts. First, the role of those cross‐cultural mediators who contributed to changing marketing communication strategies of many Italian companies during the 1950s and the 1960s is studied. Second, the ways in which US advertising rules and patterns are combined with the local tradition in order to fit the Italian context of the post‐war years are looked at. The research is based on a study of the main USA and Italian marketing and advertising literature of the post‐war years, and on an analysis of press campaigns and TV commercials.

This research shows that during the 1950s and the 1960s, the conflict between the American approach and the Italian approach to advertising did not prevent interaction and negotiation. In the post‐war years, the USA know‐how and practices, are re‐interpreted through the process of transfer to Italy, creating original, and unexpected solutions.

Although some research has been conducted on the Italian advertising scene during the post‐World War II years, the few existing contributions did not focus on the interaction between the imported American model and the local traditions. This paper provides a good overview of the ways in which notions, methodologies, and strategies coming from the USA are implemented.