La Gondola Veneziana Restaurant in Shanghai promoted their use of Angel Hair pasta with two series of print advertisements in which young ‘angelic’ children grieve over the recent loss of their hair. Angel hair pasta (Capelli d’angelo) is a very thin variety of capellini, similar to spaghetti. The most recent series, Angelo and Maria, launched in 2007, won a bronze award at Cannes International Advertising Festival 2008. Little Valentina, Little Luca and Little Camilla, launched in 2006, were the centre of a controversy over alleged plagiarism.
Credits
The Angel Hair Pasta campaign was developed at Ogilvy Shanghai by creative director/art director/copywriter Ng Fan, creative director/art director Kenny Choo, copywriters Arthur Tsang, art director Bossman and Li Ye, photographer Connie Hong at Kiwai Photography, account supervisor Teresa Muk, retoucher James Chan at Surreal Digital.
Also involved in the 2006 series were copywriters Andrew Lok and Shine Liu, art directors Liang Zhen, Larry Lin, Yang Guojing and Pasu Shen.
Crying Shame
The Angel Hair campaign became the centre of controversy when critics pointed out the similarities between the 2006 campaign and the photographic series, End Times, by American photographer Jill Greenberg. The more recent series is more distinctive, minus tears. See more at BigShiny Thing.
