Editor

The splendid isle of Ischia will be the setting for the first Italian festival dedicated to Product Placement. Scheduled are showings, meetings and workshops to take stock of the situation three years after the "Legge Urbani" film reform legislation and to assess, together with those active in this sector, the best strategies for assuring a profitable, quality-based future for film, industry and institutions.

This first “Product Placement & Location Festival” is just a trailer for what, in subsequent years, will bring together the full spectrum of audiovisual expression to be evaluated and receive awards from commissions and juries made up of leading experts in various categories.

Carlo Bassi, president of the “Product Placement & Location Festival”, will present a project for in-depth study of the fastest-growing market in terms of advertising investment in the film-making sector, especially following legislative decree 28/2004 governing the use of product placement in Italy. This market is growing at a rate of 27% per year and advertising agencies have begun to structure their activity in order to competently take on what is called "brand entertainment", in reference to situations in which the brand becomes the script protagonist.

Studies indicate that each time a product/brand is perceived positively within a film plot, its sales returns react positively. This phenomenon must be recognised and dealt with openly so that Product Placement can become part of corporate marketing and communications strategies.

"Ischia Film Festival International Location Market" is the brain-child of artistic director Michelangelo Messina who for the last five years has lent special attention to "Locations" and the involvement of Carlo Bassi (formerly managing director of AIP-Filmitalia, an entity dedicated to promoting the Italian film industry) saw the birth of a new, ambitious project—“Product Placement & Location Festival”—whose primary goal is to create an annual opportunity to promote integration of "audiovisual intellectual work" in its broadest sense and corporate communications.

An opportunity for exchange and sharing, but also an occasion to award those works that best exemplify the integration between the audiovisual work and product brand.