Contentious new advertising for Fiat’s new Panda model is now airing on Italian television, although the automaker insisting it is not courting controversy but focusing on benchmarking quality.
However, given Fiat’s less than harmonious industrial relations with its trade unions during the past few years, its content appears to directly address old working practices that it wants replaced with new productivity levels in exchange for improved salaries.
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The commercial – which will be distinct from other pan-European advertising – starts by asking: ‘How many Italies are there? The one with constructive talent? Or the one of great industries?
‘We can choose which Italy we want to be – now is the moment to start anew. Through hard work and by proving ourselves.’
Fiat insists its aim was to present the new Panda as a model of “benchmarking quality” and not to generate criticism, but its advertising has created a whirlwind of comment in Italy.
“If we want to restart, we should restart doing well-made stuff,” a Fiat spokesman told just-auto from Turin. “That is the only message we would like to address to the Italian people. It is really clear and simple – we have all the potential to do it. The target was not Italian industry generally.
“Of course every message could be misunderstood and you are able to find the negative point. The idea was to have this antagonism between the idea of Italy that sometimes goes abroad, based on archetypes of coffee and pasta with [a] new Italy that would like to do things seriously.”
Some of the advertising appears to be shot in Naples – near to where Fiat’s new Panda production has started at its Pomigliano d’Arco plant.
The site has been riven with industrial strife, particularly between Fiat and its hardline FIOM union, which refused to sign a national agreement, despite its fellow-labour bodies doing so recently.
Fiat says it does not recognise FIOM in its plants and that there is currently no dialogue occurring between the two parties.
