Abstract

In 1957, Carosello began its broadcast on Italian television for the first time. The advertising program screened a lot of Italian stars, turning them into celebrity endorsers. In short sketches, actors, actress, singers, presenters, valets or athletes lent their image to a brand, in order to promote a product. These stars became the true faces of Carosello for two decades. With no pretense of being exhaustive, this essay aims to trace a first map of the phenomenon of the Carosello’s celebrity endorsers. The first part provides a wide-ranging reflection that seeks to restore the richness and the changeability of this category. In fact, the celebrity endorsers were various and different from each other: they came from distinct sectors of the cultural industry and dealt with advertising in personal ways. The second part will be focused on four case studies, focusing on the four greatest actors in commedia all’italiana: Alberto Sordi, Vittorio Gassman and in particular Ugo Tognazzi and Nino Manfredi. These cases are meaningful, because the actors were so famous, yet they adopted different attitudes toward Carosello