From AdAge: According to PiaggioUSA’s advertising agency, the DePlano Group, new PiaggioUSA CEO Constantino Sambuy pulled the plug on a Vespa/Trojan Spring Break cross-promotion. The story features links to two posters (poster 1) (poster 2) from the proposed campaign. In 2SB’s opinion, it was a pretty funny campaign, but apparently it doesn’t fit in Piaggio’s master plan, whatever that is. Perhaps they were worried people would find out that Vespas are available in the United States. A 2SB source alleges that Piaggio insisted in a memo to dealers that the campaign was never approved in the first place, and expressed anger that the creative materials were leaked by DePlano. The AdAge story also reveals that Scottsdale, AZ engineer Paolo Vianson, a descendant of the Piaggio family, is organizing a $109 million effort to buy a 20% stake in Piaggio.
