Shoe Company Gets Colosseum Bragging Rights

[Murazor]

Only link in English I found.

Tod’s sponsors 25 million euro Colosseum restoration

Diego della Valle for Tod’s (the fancy shoe company) has pledged 25 million euros for the 15-year restoration of the Colosseum. The proposal, made last August to the Soprintendenza, has been accepted and announced officially on January 21st 2011. The complete restoration of the building and the development of a new lighting scheme will be paid by the Italian company.

This is the largest instance of private sponsorship for restoration in Italy as far as I know. It’s also got a really interesting communication plan. Tod’s will be permitted to call itself the “single sponsor for the restoration of the Colosseum” and will be able to use information about the restoration in its stores and website. On site, I doubt that we’re going to see a giant shoe on the side of the building – unlike the obscene placement of advertising of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. While clearly this sponsorship is in part being undertaken because it’s good for corporate image, it will be communicated in good taste. Tod’s will establish a foundation called “Amici del Colosseo” (friends of the Colosseum) that will communicate information about the restoration to the press and public.

The media over here in Spain have gone nuts about the matter with some even reporting that the explotation rights are also part of the agreement. Any Italian speakers here capable of reading the official press release in Italian to clarify the matter?

Title changed from "Berlusconi sells Colosseum image rights to private company" to more accurately reflect the situation while keeping the spirit of the thread ~Edi

[Edi]

The thread title is misleading. Tod's is given the right to tout itself as the sole private sponsor of the restoration, but based on my reading of the Italian press release (note that I'm just studying Italian at the moment) there is no mention of exclusive rights to the imagery in the sense that Colosseum could not be used in other instances by others for various purposes or that you couldn't take pictures of it or anything of the sort.

In other words, this company is just going to get positive publicity by claiming association with the restoration work, which is pretty accurate if they are forking over 25 million for it.

someone_else and our other Italians can likely shed more light on the full text.

[Murazor]

The thread title is misleading.

Definitely didn't mean to do that.

If it turns out that the sensationalism in the media here has led me to mistake, please some mod edit the title accordingly.

[Phantasee]

The thread title is very misleading. My Italian is probably worse than Edi's now but near as I can tell the image rights were not sold to anyone. The shoe company just got to look good.

[Edi]

The thread title is misleading.

Definitely didn't mean to do that.

If it turns out that the sensationalism in the media here has led me to mistake, please some mod edit the title accordingly.

Hell, you're Spanish, so you can probably make out more of that official press release text than I can just due to linguistic similarity. Running it through Google Translate or something similar should give you a not too atrocious translation as well.

But don't sweat it, no big deal.

Title changed.

[Murazor]

It took me a while to track down an article in English covering the matter in some detail, but it seems that the initial reporting over here was accurate after all.

The Australian.

THE Mayor of Rome has been accused of "selling off" the city's 2000-year-old Colosseum - once the stage for gladiatorial battles and executions - to a shoe tycoon.

When details of a pound stg. 22 million ($34m) restoration deal for the site leaked out earlier this month, critics called it crass commercial exploitation of one of imperial Rome's greatest symbols.

Marco Miccoli, head of the Rome branch of the opposition Democratic party, said: "We're against all forms of privatisation, whether or not they're hidden, of the most important monument in the world."

When the project was announced in January, Gianni Alemanno, the Mayor, hailed it as "the end of a nightmare" and thanked the sponsor, Diego Della Valle, 57, head of Tod's, a luxury shoemaker promoted by Gwyneth Paltrow and popular with fellow actors such as Tom Cruise and Halle Berry.

Mr Alemanno said he was "making a big present to Italy".

With high hopes of other entrepreneurs stepping in to save the country's crumbling art treasures - which give Italy a top-ranking 45 entries on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites - Sandro Bondi, the then culture minister, hailed the deal as "historic".

But concerns are emerging that the deal is too one-sided. It gives Mr Della Valle, who is worth an estimated $US1.3 billion ($1.23bn), exclusive rights to the commercial use of images of the Colosseum. When Volkswagen asked Rome authorities for permission to film an advertisement there, it was told to seek permission from Mr Della Valle.

Mr Della Valle will use a logo featuring the monument on his shoes, bags and perfumes, among other goods, for 15 years. During the restoration and for two years after its completion, he will be free to stamp Tod's logo on entry tickets to the Colosseum.

He will also have the right to display advertisements for Tod's on the walls of the monument. However, the size of the billboards will be limited to a maximum height of 2.4m after an earlier controversy over giant hoardings that hid from sight landmarks ranging from the Bridge of Sighs in Venice to churches in Rome.

A trade union representing staff at the Culture Ministry has filed a lawsuit to establish the legality of the deal, saying it was worth pound stg. 180m in advertising and marketing to Tod's.

But Roberto Cecchi, director of archeological sites in Rome, said: "We haven't sold the Colosseum. On the contrary, for the first time we have attracted private funds to safeguard our heritage."

Mr Alemanno branded those who opposed the deal as "either mad or sworn enemies of Rome". Giancarlo Galan, who became Culture Minister last month, has demanded to see the entire dossier on the deal.

Many archeological sites have suffered in recent years from lack of funds and maintenance, a situation worsened by cuts under Silvio Berlusconi's government, which allocates 0.18 per cent of public spending to the Culture Ministry.

The Colosseum, the greatest amphitheatre in the Roman world, which attracts six million visitors a year, is blackened by pollution, suffers from poor drainage and is shaken by vibrations from a nearby underground line. Three chunks of masonry broke off last year, hours before it opened to the public.

Rossella Rea, the director of the site, called the three-year project "a restoration and a restyling". Starting later this month, the exterior walls will be cleaned and the first two tiers and part of the third tier - which commands an impressive view over Rome - will be restored.

Mr Della Valle's logo may soon crop up on another famous site. He has offered to "give a helping hand" to restoration work at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

The Sunday Times

So, exclusive rights concerning for-profit use of the Colosseum seems to be part of the deal.

[MarxII]

I'm not entirely sure on the state of the Colosseum at the moment; is this restoration money badly needed, or not likely to be found by other means?

[Murazor]

I'm not entirely sure on the state of the Colosseum at the moment; is this restoration money badly needed, or not likely to be found by other means?

Though I am not 100% sure of the specifics, from what I've read, the Colosseum is in a fairly bad state of disrepair. Not critical (parts of Pompeii are worse), but bad. They apparently have nine rent-a-cops guarding the structure at different turns and that's it.

And the money is unlikely to be found elsewhere, because it Berlusconi has spent the last few years slashing the culture budgets to the point that the national art museum of Italy apparently has personnel shortages which force them to run around the museum closing and opening halls every half an hour to give visitors a chance to see the whole collection.

[Edi]

I'm not entirely sure on the state of the Colosseum at the moment; is this restoration money badly needed, or not likely to be found by other means?

In bad shape because there are thousands (up to tens of thousands) of visitors every day. Not a lot of personnel either.

And apparently the original article was true then. Which sucks. Those exclusive rights ought to be worth way more than just 25 million euros, but exclusive rights over such public property shouldn't be given to any private entity.

But we all know Berlusconi is a worthless fuckwit anyway.

[Zac Naloen]

Ignoring the shoe company issue here, Just to make sure I understand the context correctly, is the colloseum getting a restoration to how it was 2000 years ago, or is it just being "made safe" like ruins need to be from time to time?

[Edi]

Ignoring the shoe company issue here, Just to make sure I understand the context correctly, is the colloseum getting a restoration to how it was 2000 years ago, or is it just being "made safe" like ruins need to be from time to time?

Restoration, as in preventing further degradation and perhaps restoring portions of it. If you've never been there, you probably have no idea just how massive amounts of the structure were torn down and quarried for use in other buildings. There is no way to return it to what it was in its glory. Not without it costing billions and closing the site down for several years.

[Simon_Jester]

As I see it, it would be very difficult to place the Colosseum in imminent danger of suffering much more decay and damage than the past 1500 years of neglect and quarrying have caused. But the Italian government very much prefers to keep the Colosseum at a constant or improving state of maintenance and quality, even if they never plan to spend enough to really 'restore' the place to a credible simulation of its old glory.

[someone_else]

Well, first and foremost, Italy's cultural stuff is in very bad condition due to generalized lack of funds (you may have heard about Pompei falling down due to very preventable accidents).
The lack of funds seems to be caused by someone's pork-barreling plan, since the expense to maintain them isn't horribly huge for our economy and they do generate lots of money (and could generate much more if handled better).
So, I welcome our new master with joy, and hope he can do something for Pompei too.

Now, from the pdf linked in the article above (the one containing the contract), seems like Todd's will pay the money, and that money will form a foundation called Friends of the Colosseum (Amici del Colosseo). It will then be that foundation that directs the actual work on the colosseum.

They also say that Todd's and that foundation will have a license of exclusive use of images and documentation of the Colosseum's restoration for its own marketing purposes and on its web site, nationally and internationally, claiming that it is (simplified a little from burocratic speak) "Todd's is the sole sponsor for colosseum restauration" (which is right).
Todd's license to do this will expire two years after the end of the end of the restauration (that knowing how these things work, will last decades), the foundation will last 15 years.


In all this, also the volkswagen is pissed off. They wanted to use the colosseum's images to market one of their new cars, but seems like they didn't offer high enough.


I have some fears that this money may end up in other people's pockets as well, but that's a definite improvement from the "we collectively shit on history and culture with great pleasure" attitude Berlusconi's lackeys have here (they are technically ministries and politicians, but since with our current election law you can only elect the party and not the candidates... the party's boss has the absolute power on who goes where).

[someone_else]

Ignoring the shoe company issue here, Just to make sure I understand the context correctly, is the colloseum getting a restoration to how it was 2000 years ago, or is it just being "made safe" like ruins need to be from time to time?

Restoration, as in preventing further degradation and perhaps restoring portions of it. If you've never been there, you probably have no idea just how massive amounts of the structure were torn down and quarried for use in other buildings. There is no way to return it to what it was in its glory. Not without it costing billions and closing the site down for several years.

That's entirely doable, if we stop the silly project of building that bridge to connect Sicily to the rest of Italy (that smells like direct money-transfer to mafia for the sake of it), and possibly using the saved money from the project of building some nuclear plants (I've seen costs thrown around in the tens of billions of euros for the plants), that has always been at risk of being torpedoed, and now there is no way in hell they can do it without fucking themselves at the next election.