Magnum Italy was going to launch for Dante’s 700th death anniversary an ice cream line based on his most important piece: The Divine Comedy. Therefore, besides a campaign that promoted their newly made ice creams, the brand wanted to honor the great writer and contribute to Italian culture. Hence, they built everything around the brand positioning: pleasure.

700 hundred years ago the greatest referent on Italian literature, Dante Alighieri, fell in love with Beatrice Portinari. Ever since then, Beatrice became his muse, guiding him in his most important piece “The Divine Comedy”. Unfortunately, that love never came to life. Until today.

700 years after, Magnum and Roberto Ferri, the pope’s portraitist, created an artwork showing the kiss that Beatrice and Dante never had.

For a month, people could physically visit the portrait at Palazzo Firenze in Rome, at the official headquarters of Dante Alighieri’s Society. Subsequently, they will be able to do it in April at the prestigious Italian museum Scuderie del Quirinale.

Our brief was to insert the brand into Italian culture, one that has a long history and one of the most influential ones in the world.

Our PR strategy centered on a very simple but strong insight: people love knowing more about the stories and characters from their culture. This is why we knew our work had the potential to break through and become something bigger than advertising.

The final piece of the puzzle was making sure we had a simple message that had a strong link to the brand: A pleasure that took 700 years to happen.

We did a simultaneous launch to reveal the painting, with a digital exhibition online and a physical one in the Palazzo Firenze museum with the artist himself. And beginning in April 2022, the painting will remain displayed forever at the Scuderie del Quirinale.

700 hundred years ago one of the most influential minds in literature, Dante Alighieri, fell in love with Beatrice Portinari. Ever since then, Beatrice became his muse, guiding him in his most important piece of work “The Divine Comedy”. Unfortunately, that love never came to life. Until today.

700 years after, Magnum and Roberto Ferri, the pope’s portraitist, created a painting showing the kiss that Beatrice and Dante never had.

For a month, people could physically visit the painting at Palazzo Firenze in Rome, or digitally on a microsite. And from April 2022, people will be able to visit the painting at Scuderie del Quirinale, one of the most important museums in Italy.

With this campaign Magnum obtained 1 million new buyers, sales grew 46% and market share increased 136 basis points, reaching its highest level in 2 years. In addition, Magnum boosted its leading position obtaining the highest Top Of Mind and total mentions level since 2015 (Source: Kantar). Moreover, all the brand’s key attributes performed stronger than the previous year.