• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, September 4, 2024

This super-charming, 90-second Lavazza commercial is so packed with joyful content that it could be the start of three different campaigns.

Post-viewing, you get the feeling that Lavazza could be producing and packaging some magic, performance-enhancing beans.

First comes the robot named Luigi.

When I heard about this new ad mascot, I admit I was a bit wary.

Visions of Nintendo’s stereotypical Super Mario character danced in my head, with his mustache, cap, and propensity to talk with extra vowels about pizza-making.

But the Mario Bros. were filtered through a Japanese cliched sense of a Mediterranean macho man from the 1980s.

Whereas Lavazza is a hallowed Italian coffee company from the 1890s.

I’m happy to report that there was no need to fret.

It turns out that this Luigi fella is a delightful, joyful soul, about the size of a penguin.  He’s got enormous, expressive saucer eyes, the sleek body of an espresso machine, and the intestinal fortitude to brew coffee in his belly all day long while zipping around an industrial-looking office, serving it sweetly to the employees.

He’s like a sentient and sensitive cross between Wall-e and E.T., the opposite of cold and threatening. He moves his neck, blinks his eyes, and makes little techno-cooing noises.

The poetic tag line is “Pleasure Makes Us Human.”   And oh, the humanity!  Throughout the spot, the coffee is served in small ceramic espresso cups and saucers, which returns us to a pre-Starbucks, more refined time of social caffeination.

There’s a timeless quality to the spot, which brings us to the second concept: the music. “Que Sera, Sera,” the philosophical Doris Day hit song of 1956, which broke in the Alfred HItchcock movie, “The Man Who Knew Too Much” is perfect, funny and stirring. (“Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here’s what she said to me....") The song’s cheerful fatalism underscores the transition that Luigi makes after he unfortunately blows a fuse after trying to sip his own delicious brew.

His loss of consciousness leads us to an adorable dream sequence in Italy, with Luigi indulging in La Dolce Vita on the beach, the piazzas, and the road with his office colleagues, packed into a tiny red Fiat 500.

Then comes the third concept, when our favorite guys from “The Office” show up at the very end to put Luigi back together. 

Yes, Michael and Jim, aka Steve Carell and John Krasinski, the hugely popular, top-of-the-heap “Office characters, kindly come out of nowhere to tend to the  guy who blew his own circuits.

The spot was great even without this icing on the icing, but the two “Office” stars’ performance together is so natural and fresh that it seems unscripted. They crack each other up, and we delight in their genuine delight.

There’ll be two more ads with our friends Steve and John launching in October.

The Luigi introductory spot will air across national linear and cable TV, CTV, and paid online video ads, beginning Sept. 30.

Kudos to the creators of this hero video, developed in-house and with the help of RDL Worldwide, for figuring out how to create a robot character who is warm and amenable, but never saccharine.

I’d grab a coffee with him anytime.