• by Larissa Faw , August 30, 2017

Publicis Italy has landed global creative and strategy duties for the Diesel fashion brand, part of the OTB Group. Anomaly was the incumbent for less than a year.

The account will be led by Bruno Bertelli, global chief creative officer of Publicis WW, working alongside Diesel artistic director Nicola Formichetti. Their first collaboration for the fall/winter 2017 season will launch internationally in September.

'In a seemingly limitless world that is smartphone dominant, we are trapped into conformity more than we could ever imagine," stated Formichetti. "Together with Publicis, we will enjoy discovering a different point of view about things without taking ourselves too seriously. After all, this is the first ingredient of Successful Living."

This spring, the fashion brand waded into political messaging with the "Make Love Not Walls" campaign. Directed by David LaChapelle, the brightly colored creative featured LBGT models, including RuPaul’s "Drag Race" winner Raja, Laith Ashley, ballet dancer Sergei Polunin and Octavia Hamlett as they danced, kissed, and finally broke through a heart-shaped hole in a wall, a nod to U.S. President Trump's desire to build a wall between Mexico.

That campaign was developed by Anomaly Amsterdam, which had been appointed Diesel's agency in 2016 as part of an ongoing effort to make the brand more relevant to younger shoppers.

"Our ‘Make Love, not Walls’ campaign, which was based on a strategy around societal tensions in the world, was hugely successful," says Anomaly Amsterdam's CEO Engin Celikbas. "Our task was to give Diesel back its voice, and we believe we succeeded in that."

The switch to Publicis came after Diesel's appointment of new senior brand and marketing leadership. Says Celikbas: "We look back on our collaboration with Diesel with great joy and pride and wish Diesel and Publicis Italia the best of luck."