Americanizing the World? U.S. Advertising Abroad in the American Century, the View from Italy

Abstract

Largely based on unpublished company records, the article chronicles the evolution of J. Walter Thompson Italia, the Italian branch of the leading American advertising agency in the twentieth century, between Reconstruction and the “Hot Autumn.” First, it intends to offer additional material and insight on the actual, controversial impact of U.S. advertising in the country in the post-WWII era. Second, it suggests ways to further pursue Mary Nolan’s recent ambitious project of looking at transatlantic American-European relations as truly “hybridized,” that is, bidirectional and mutually influential – this especially as far as consumer culture is concerned. At the same time, it retains a more cautious and restrained notion of “Americanization.”