Like the Marlboro Man, Harley was iconic. It screamed freedom, which screams American. It leveraged every sensory experience to create a great brand experience and its advertising sang it praises. You didn’t have to ride a Harley to love the brand. It was as American as, well, apple pie.

A year after breaking up with Carmichael Lynch and having a wild fling with crowd sourcing, the brand is still playing the field. It feels wrong. For as in your face and raw as the old brand was, I trusted it. It was real. It was American.           It was mine – even if I don’t own a bike.

No Cages. is preaching to the choir. And the choir is getting old. It’s not what the brand needs. It doesn’t embody the American spirit. It doesn’t ignite passion. The Harley I once knew was the embodiment of raw American passion.                 No Cages. is not Harley. Screw It, Let’s Ride – again.

Harley in JSonline Check out what Rick Barrett, a Harley blogger, and I have to say.

Heat, light, air and people, too, all are closed out or welcomed in depending, in part, upon the season. Each window has multiple layers. From within one sees top to bottom curtains, long slim simple natural-colored panels of cotton with perhaps a hint of lace. Behind them are long paneless sheets of glass, which rattle in the wind. Beyond are rolled slats of wood or aluminum or folding wooden shutters creating a protective barrier against the outer world – light, heat, sound and people. If one lives on a lower level, between the long sheets of glass and the rolled slats lays gridded metal bars.

Open only occasionally, Italian windows keep the heat of the summer sun out and trap the fleeting winter heat within, no doubt, a functional visual expression of Mediterranean life. In summer the sun blazes casting long hot, sweaty shadows that invade interior spaces. In winter, if you live in a communal flat, heat visits only during the day and must be trapped within for nighttime warmth.

All the day they remain closed. Wondering down Italians streets, save for the multitude of voices that rise and fall (mostly rise) and the clatter of dishes long preparing lunch or dinner, it seems that no one resides within the flats that line the street. Blocks of windows with wooden slats rolled down or shuttered pulled closed.

All the night they remain closed. This time wondering down the street there is silence. Only later, long into the morning hours, can one finally say “bouna notte.” For in Italy dinners often do not end until well beyond ten and then still it is “bouna sera.”  In le notte, there is a visual silence that is strangely repetitive of the afternoon, windows rolled shut.

Day or night, a sort of visual silence permeates Italian streets, a longing for security. But, in brief moments the windows fly open – and then wide–open. A moment, perhaps a few hours, as if washing hot winds out and sweeping cool breezes in, or welcoming some light that they had not previously noticed. Then, again, they fly shut. The open windows appear like periods at the ends of long Italian sentences spoken with flying Italian arms.

Flatted frames of brown, like long sentences, repetitively dot exterior walls. By night they sing a silent lullaby. By day their voices echo emptiness. Yet the closed windows of Italy belie a deep cultural warmth – or perhaps they exemplify a cultural irony. For as warm as Italians may be it is a warmth felt, only, once on the other side of their cultural window.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

In the United States bikes are an expression of physical virility. At a young age we are introduced to bikes as a form of play. However, play for Americans is often an extension of, or a seedbed for the embrace of, sport and competition. Lance Armstrong’s Live Strong brand is the perfect example of the American cultural code for bikes. Yet for as much as America is a physical and competitive culture, it expresses strong tendencies toward closure and protection. Thus, Americans are usually found biking along with the highly symbolic bike helmet.

In the Netherlands, bikes are an integral form of transportation expressing the practicality of Dutch culture. Certainly those who ride bikes are often in good physical condition, but the act of riding a bike in the Netherlands is a reflection of functional resourcefulness, not physically conditioning. Thus one often finds huge bike parking structures (akin to American auto parking structures) outside rail stations in major urban centers. Bikes, locked in place, also line quiet neighborhood streets in most Dutch cities. While bikes certainly offer a form of connecting Dutch people together their use is much more rooted in utility, connecting people to work and home and the resources that support home-life.

In Italy bikes mark a distinctly different cultural space. Surely they function as a form of transportation and clearly they help Italians stay in relatively good physical condition. One only has to see the 80something men and women biking down Italian streets to note their utility and physical benefit. However, transportation and physical conditioning are simply residual effects of Italians need to maintain their sense of community – and this they do, in part, with bikes.

Bikes are an inherently embedded point of community connection. It is not uncommon to see a someone stopped, bike straddled between their legs, engaged in a conversation with someone in a car, on foot, or on another bike. While some cities have carved out spaces for bikes along the roads, other cites have simply accommodated them as a part of life. Children grow up on bikes in Italy – literally. The smallest of them on seats in front of their parents with the middle sized children on seats behind. And as families grow, they often move in unison on bikes. Any walk through a market will find Italians strolling with their bikes, their baskets full. Italians ride in snow and rain with one hand holding an umbrella. In one moment you might see an Italian riding along, a cell phone glued to their ear, and in the next moment they are locking their bike beside a coffee bar or concert hall. Bikes propel and engage Italians within community.

Bikes also offer a glimpse into Italians powerful gender cultural codes. During my time in Italy I have been riding a man’s bike, an ancient loaner from the uncle of a friend. As an American, I initially saw it as simply my bike. I quickly realized its straight middle bar was a powerful cultural code for masculinity, and I had crossed the line. That bar was an endless source of discussion and an immediate signifier for me as non-Italian. For in Italy bikes are highly gendered, as are many other things. A further articulation of gender can be observed in the clothing of the people riding bikes. It is not uncommon to see women in beautiful dress with amazingly high-heeled shoes and men wearing elegant suits. In Italy bikes brings people to together in community whether at concerts or clubs, work or school and they dress accordingly – and always along strongly articulated gender lines.

I close with a branded articulation of the impact of bikes on Italian community life – Vespa. The representations of community inherit in biking explains, in part, the explosive success of Vespa. The brand understood the cultural codes inherent in bikes and it offered a fasters mode for mobile community connections. Its small size, easy room for two, and quieter engine (relative to the hyper-American Harley) signify the modern extension of the Italian bike. Vespa will never replace the bike, but it has successfully leveraged its culture codes of mobile community.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

Hip. Casual chic was everywhere in the same timeless way advertising hip has been demonstrated for years – jeans and tee shirts with funky shoes. Of course, as it was Cannes and so the optional khaki shorts and sandals appeared. Youth, the iconic marker of hip, was also abundantly apparent and, as usual, encouraged by the excessive flow of alcohol. Hip translated smoothly from people to images and ideas. But, this too was not new. Youthful hip is a perennially postmodern phenomenon bred within and well articulated by advertising.

White. For as global as our world has become the advertising images were inherently western, even if the agencies were from Singapore or San Paolo. In print small logos, resting quietly in the lower right corner, with minimal copy along side small headlines and dominant visuals predominated – just as they have for years. There were winners from Brazil and India, and China snagged its first gold lion, but most were from global multi-national agencies who have moved into emerging markets anxious to help spread global capitalism. Despite the diversity of winners almost everyone was a polished hip western, “white.” For a global marketplace it was discouraging to see such homogenous blending of constructed shades of white.

Men. They were everywhere, just like in the agency world where they make-up virtually 80 percent of all creative departments. The judging panels continued to play out the 80/20 game – perpetuating a style and a way of working that is defined by masculinity and not by the people who make the lion’s share of consumption choices – women. The surprise, though it should not have been, was the “New Directors Showcase,” with 17 new directors – all men, if my memory serves me correctly. Here too history repeated itself with hyper-masculine imagery of boyhood remembered, violence, and sex, with a few rare exceptions. Of the 17 directors only five featured female characters and of that four were sophomoric and sexualized representations. The greatest differentiating factor was the dazzling technological executions.

iPhones. Make that iEverything. This group of influencers is infatuated with all things Apple. This too, is not a surprise. Millward Brown, in its annual valuation of global brands, named Apple number one – by a mile. Apple’s change in value from 2010 to 2011 was 84, nearly 4 times greater than its nearest competitor (McDonalds). Its brand value was nearly 50 percent higher than the number-two brand (Google). Apple has become the iconic symbol of hip and the ultimate technological tool for social connection – embraced with gusto by advertisers as they chase after consumers driving social change through technology.

This seems a story with a predetermined ending. Apple makes the products that enables creatives to make creative executions, while creatives embrace the products that Apple makes. Which takes me back to where I began. Hip, white men create advertising, which (ironically) speaks to hip white men – who award hip, white men  – who hire hip, white men – who…

The exhibition spaces physically express the texture of the community across time, using historical monuments and everyday spaces to display postmodern artist expressions. A small café may exhibit a series of rural portraiture, while the newly restored historical monument, such as Chiostri di San Peatro, may host an exhibition of historical images of papal life. Both spaces offer communal gathering reflecting one of the hallmarks of Italian life, historical and contemporary life co-existing. The festivals iconic pink frame is infused into the fabric of Reggio’s physical spaces. Regardless of the season, the icon an be found stamped on the ground, pasted to a window or hanging from a ancient wall. It has become a symbol for “Reggio Emilia Città Creativa,” a city with an extremely vibrant creative life, which per capita has far more creative enterprises than many larger cities in Italy.

Just outside the cloisters of Chiostri di San Peatro were a series of photos commissioned to document everyday life, all on the same day, across all of Italy. The images were hung in succession in an open public space. They wrapped around an old pealing wall, tucking under lush vegetation, living next to a street vender and a huge rack of bicycles. The manner of the presentation, framed within a communal setting, literally engaged the viewer in a walk through a day in the life of Italy. In the process it exposed and expressed both interior and exterior Italian life, symbolically articulating the interweaving of public and private, of old and new.

The sense of interweaving, of wholeness is also implicit the fact that the exhibition spaces are open late into the night when people flow onto the streets. Thus, the exhibition spaces become embedded extensions of community. The juxtaposition of postmodern imagery juxtaposed to ancient and modern architectural spaces visually articulate a universality of Italian life. Further, citizens across a wide socio-economic strata engage with work, exemplifying the perennial marriage of art and culture with everyday Italian life.

From a methodological perspective, the use of historic spaces often lent themselves to artistic expressions that engages all the senses in a contrast of time and space. In one such exhibition the scent of dried roses wafted upwards as the sound of flowing water from a video of the photographic process filled the space. It was a stark juxtaposition of postmodern against ancient. There was, of course, the obvious visual dimension of the photographs, which were displayed against ancient wall around a circle of dried roses that rustled against my hand as I bend to examine them. Yet another juxtaposition of postmodern against ancient, of death against life.

Yet amidst this immerse of artists expression were brands – alive and well. As I left the final last exhibition, which featured photographers from five different countries exploring aspects of labor on three continues, I found the branded embodiment of labor and the issues that surround it – Nike. There sat two greeters, she an architect and he a soccer player. His Nike hat tossed to the side and atop a stack of exhibition brochures. His cell phone resting beside it as they sat playing Carte Piacentine a traditional Italian card game. The intimate meshing of local and global, artistic and commercial, traditional and postmodern perfectly expressed by the blazing green Nike tagline – “Just do it.”

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

Here’s the thing I remember – the flag. It was always inside the poling station and usually outside too. We Americans wave our flag purporting to be so patriotic, yet we vote in relatively small numbers. We barely crack the quorum line for president elections, with about a 55% turnout in recent years. And, mid term elections, well there we’ve never cracked a quorum.

Yesterday, after two days of voting (yup, they keep poles open on Sundays – a novel idea don’t you think), 57% of Italian voted for four referendums. That’s right nothing but referendums. No people. No offices. Just referendums.

So I went to the poles to see what was happening. Not a flag in sight. Not one. Hummm… did my American eyes deceive me? Are Italians not patriotic? Then last evening I watched the news (one of those habits I must cultivate to help me learn Italian).

Feet, feet and more feet. Italian went to the poles and voted, passing fours items with over 94% of the vote: Italy will remain nuclear free, water can remain public (two different referendums), and public officials are not immune from prosecution. To give this some context, in the last 16 years quorums were never reached and the first referendum (after the one to end the monarchy), which passed in 1974, was to allow divorce. Clearly Italians were motivated this time. Perhaps Berlusconi inspired the turnout. Best I refrain from comment and return to the poling places.

As with the U.S. most polling stations are in schools and they look a lot like American polling places. People work in teams to confirm the identity of the voter, who must show his or her ID and which is stamped each time they vote. There are cloth draped booths, and lots of serious silence. But, there were no flags blowing in the wind and no flags hanging from the gym wall. Nope, notta one! The only colorful things in the entire place were four ballot boxes with color-coded slots to match the color-coded referendum ballots. And guess what, they managed to hand-count all those votes (over 28 million) by the time the nightly news ran.

No flags. Not one to be seen at the poling stations or even on the nightly news (at least the station I watched). Writing this reminds me of a comment by a Spanish colleague, who teaches in Peru, and visited the U.S. last year. After a few days in the States she said to me, “Why are there flags everywhere? Do you all forget you are American?” Apparently Italians do not need flags to remember they are Italian.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

Via Emilia was originally built by the Romans as a military road. Then it connected the north, Milan, to the south, the sea. Today its logistical function remains similar. It connects north and south. However, its social function is vastly different.

Today it passes through flourishing cities, most of which originated as service stops for the ancient Roman military. As Via Emilia passes northward and southward it too shifts and changes. At times it passes through the old city centers and becomes a pedestrian, no-traffic zone. As it moves outward to the edges of the cities – as at this corner –  traffic flows freely. Regardless, as it passes through a city, Via Emilia, becomes a thriving retail hub. And no center of commerce in Italy would ever be without its coffee bars – always serving coffee and sometimes serving the Coke brand.

Outside the cities Via Emilia becomes a highway moving people and products north and south. This corner in Reggio Emilia illustrates the invasiveness of American brands. The image of the late actor Gary Coleman plastered to a train overpass, as an African immigrant walks by, demonstrates Italy’s growing multicultural dimensions. It also demonstrates that brands are much more than trademarked names. They are cultural monikers to which people across the globe aspire. It is not that one aspires to be Gary Coleman. Rather, it is the aspiration to climb out of oblivion, to be seen and heard, to be known in an identifiable way – to be remembered. In that sense brands do not sell us things, they sell us dreams.

Coke does not sell us sweet, carbonated, cola-flavored water – it sells us happiness and belonging. Blockbuster does not sell or rent us movies – it provides the ability to take home a dream and more often then not it’s an American dream. The image of Gary Coleman, just across the street from Blockbuster, is not an just happenstance. Nor is Blockbuster’s location on Via Emilia a random choice. For Via Emilia, as it runs through cities, is always a place with heavy foot and bicycle traffic. In essence Via Emilia is the artery within the heart of many Italian cities. It is the perfect place to sell dreams.

Yet, turning one more time we see the ever-present bicycle resting against an ancient church wall. A reminder, as any good brand manager knows, that for brands to flourish they must live side-by-side with local culture. In fact, a successful brand infuses itself into local culture. In one moment a successful global brand’s identity sparkles, in the next it – ever so subtly – reflects the culture in which it now lives.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

There is, perhaps, no better place to explore with one’s nose then Italy – to take in il profumo d’Italia. The streets of Italy team with life. And so it is here that our nose can explore what it means to be Italian, which changes by season and region, city and village. In the north near Bologna tigleo (linden) trees line the streets providing a sweet perfume. Jasmine hedges and ever-prized roses line the streets, while cascading bogenvelia fall from balconies. Thus, the experience of strolling or slipping quickly past on one’s bicycle is an aromatic delight with textures changing by season and location.

In Italy, food is often introduced to the nose before the tongue. A colleague recently returning from Siena came bearing gifts. He tenderly unwrapped a bulbous salame and held it up to my nose for my first experience of its delicacy. The pungent scent of the cured pork laced with garlic wafted upward.

Long before reaching a shop – il negozio – that sells meat and cheese one is greeted by its rich array of scents wafting out the door. Fruits are selected as much by their scent as their sight, but only in the protective hands of the shopkeeper – il ortorlano. And no kitchen or balcony is complete without an array of herbs whose scents fill Italian flats. In many ways the scent of food signifies the bond Italians have with the land.

Walking along the streets the yeasty sweetness of baking bread wafts down the block from many a local bakery – il forno. The complex scent of an Italian street is a comingling of bread and Jasmine, garlic and tigleo, along with the bitter bite of excessive cigarette smoke, which frequently curls into your nostrils. Though smoking is banded in nearly all buildings, the ban does not seem to have squelched Italians’ passion for smoking.

Italy’s crowded urban centers are also marked by other pungent earthy, and far less elegant, scents. In Rome where buses can be so packed that you could literally lift your feet off the floor and remain standing, the heat of the summer brings forth the musky scent of humanity in close proximity to one’s nose. And in the summer, the huge trash bins resting along each block viscerally signify the close proximity that most Italians share. On hot days the scent of jasmine and roses can be tempered by the stench of decaying refuse as one passes a bin. And in Naples, trash collection has become such a problem that one might suggest the scent of refuse has cast a long shadow over the aromatic gardens that line the balconies of its quiet streets.

The sea provides yet other sensory experience, its salty air floating above beaches up and down the coasts – its fragrance defining both heat and light. Yet, beaches are but a small part of the Italian seacoast. In fact cascading mountains, some with looming Cyprus, mark its jagged coast. The herbs and flowering shrubs that also grow on these craggy surfaces suffuse the air with a loamy smell that floats along the coast signifying Italy’s association with the sun and sea.

Interestingly, unlike the toiletry and household cleaning aisles in American supermarkets, Italian supermarkets offer a far smaller selection of scented products. Conversely perfume shops are far more common in Italy than in the U.S. It would seem that Italians are not easily lured into purchasing artificial fragrances, when their world is so rich with natural scent. Finally, the Italian words, which define scent, are as specific and emotive as the fragrances that drift past by – buon odore e profumo meraviglioso per good – cattivo e puzza per bad.

From city to sea, from shop to flat, scent naturally and with great nuance defines Italian life. La vita in Italia è complessa.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

A few nights ago I had dinner with some friends at il Contadino, Azienda Agrituristica, just outside of Reggio Emilia. Il Contadino was once a fully functioning farm. The proprietor, Guglielmo Punghellini, and his sons, who still raise pigs, opened a restaurant in half of the old farmhouse. The food –  è buonissimo – is prepared with only local slow food. It is no surprise that the slow food movement originated in Piedmont Italy in 1986. But I digress…

The jewel of il Contadino is the salame made from their pigs and which won a gold medal – suspended from Guglielmo’s neck. In the U.S. the same medal would, no doubt, be worn as a brand mark. Not so in Italy, where humility and pride seem to live side by side. Here the gold medal functions more like a wedding band worn by a man who married the most beautiful woman in the village.

The process of making salume is the ultimate in slow food – and of course very Italian. As they say, “Of the pig, nothing is wasted.” There are endless naturally cured varieties: salame, prosciutto, speck, culatello, coppa, pancetta, mortadella, ciccioli… The flavor and texture within each variety varies widely by region and even city. Most begin with locally raised pigs – very local in this case. The salume is cured at room temperature, preferably in darkness, air-drying to cause fermentation. When it is cured, the white powdery covering (mold or flour) becomes nearly airtight, preventing photo-oxidation. When it goes to market, and that too will most likely be local, the salume will be sold in shops specializing in multiple varieties. Of course, these shops that will never be open at midday when the very civilized Italians –shopkeepers included – are having lunch with family and/or friends.

Here’s the inside story. My friend’s father grew up in this house.  Guglielmo who was a friend of his father greeted us, took our order, and served us – and everyone else in the restaurant. He also gave us a tour of the curing rooms, while one of his sons prepared the food. But, of course, the father should give the tour. It would be no other way. Remember the symbolic association of the gold medal as a wedding band? Now think of us as the distant cousins coming to meet the beautiful bride. So up the back stairs we went for a tour of the old family home – now the curing rooms – one of which had been the bedroom of my friend’s aunt! Behold the scent of garlic, a hint of pepper and succulent ripening pork with a ceiling of dangling jewels all lit by a single bare bulb.

Recall my comment about a gold medal worn as a brand mark, in the U.S. Now, here’s an interesting branding twist. As the FDA regulates meat and most Italian salumi do not meet its standards, with few acceptations, most cannot be imported – such a pity. However, in San Francisco in the 1960s a group of Italian immigrants, each with a family history as salumi makers, trademarked the name “Italian Salami” for salame made in the U.S.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

One of the exhibitions was held in what was once Italy’s largest psychiatric hospital, Ospedale San Lazzaro. Though many of the buildings are now converted to commercial space one, Sezione Lombroso, has been restored and maintained as a tribute to the men and women who suffered there. The restoration exposes a painful history, a history not unlike other psychiatric hospitals of the time from across the globe. However, it also uncovered haunting and intimately Italian words and images scrawled onto the front walls of Sezione Lombroso.

Credere, Obbedire, Combattere (Believe, Obey, Fight), Mussolini’s branded fascist slogan, remains scrawled across the wall adjacent to the front door. Crude iconic imagery of wartime Italy reverberates against the walls suggesting the power of fascist ideology and the terror of war fused with the personal pain of the residents of Sezione Lombroso. The image on the upper left above the fuselage of the plane and below the slogan is a clear articulation of Mussolini himself.

The interior spaces cut a hole in my heart, while the inky black marks scrawled onto the classic ocher colored plaster walls chilled me to the bone. Even the Italian sun streaming into the portico could not warm me.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow