Tschao Ciao
Colorful, campy, and queer, nostalgic and subversive, born out of a shared love for absurd glamour, 80s /90s aesthetics and maximalism, the studio unites their respective backgrounds in advertising and film and allows them to bring their dreamscapes to life. Johanna and Savio unfold their visions and hopes for the future, where glamour is a way of being and an attitude, not a taste.
Reveal us the backstage secrets: How did Ciao-Tschau begin?
I (Savio) found Johanna’s website online and immediately liked her aesthetic, so I contacted her and we met for a coffee. We immediately clicked! From there, things have gone just step by step, very organically. The creative connection was there right away and we both left thinking that there could be something more, which we explored over this project and resulted in the studio.
Why did you feel the need to shake up the advertisement industry?
We feel that the advertisement industry gets a bit dusty sometimes. We often see the same style of advertisements and commercials, so we think that we could bring a fresh touch on commercials, coming from the mix of our experiences, and visual references.
Johanna: As a woman in advertising, I was fed up of repeatedly hearing the same stereotypes and ideas about gender and diversity and wanted to change that.
Do you think that the promotional industry and social change can be in sodality with each other?
Absolutely. Advertising has always played a key role in shaping the images of our society by creating and later perpetuating stereotypes. So in turn, commercial imagery, especially in the field of fashion and music that represents the zeitgeist, has a clear message and spreads fast can have a positive effect on our society.
Is it important to you to give space to underrepresented bodies and voices, and how will you avoid falling into identity tokenization?
This is a topic that is very dear to us. Tokenization has always been a topic in our discussions, while working on our video project, but also generally for the future. How to represent diversity without avoiding tokenization? We think that however representation is extremely important, in order to create a real change in the industry, diversity should not only be shown in front of the camera, but also behind it. When we collaborate with people; we try to make sure that there is a certain diversity also within the team and that some under-represented categories can get a chance to enter the media world, which sometimes is not so easy to penetrate. As well, during our casting process, we wanted to be sure that the casting would be open to any body type, race and age without pre-conceiving a certain type of person. In the end we just chose that seemed to fit best in the roles.
You define yourself “subversive”, can you articulate in which way?
We are just two mischievous children that want to have fun and materialize our craziest visual fantasies. We hope we will always have the freedom to create crazy universes where the audience should just immerse themselves and feel free and amused. As well, we like to encode messages in our words and visuals that are important to us. Some are more blatant and obvious, some a bit more subtle and hidden.
Who/What are you looking at, when you think about inspirational characters in the advertisement industry?
Savio: On one hand, I love Roy Anderson commercials, with his dark, cynical and almost anti-capitalist touch. On the other hand I find very fascinating the positivist consumerism of the 80s , 90s, where people still believed that a magical product could solve all their problems. I also get very inspired by fashion and the way it was portrayed in the golden age of top models, when paper magazines really were the only way to access beautiful pictures, and everything could be possible in an editorial. Do you need a model sitting on an elephant walking on the surface of the moon? We will give it to you.
Johanna: I try to not look too much at advertising for inspiration, instead I close my eyes and listen to music to come up with fantastic worlds, I watch old movies and take screenshots, and I browse subcultures all over the world to get fresh input.
How did you come up with the idea of Stuff-Fix Air Freshener?
The first time we met we had an exchange about how it is to be a woman and a queer person within the industry and shared some frustrations about that, which very quickly became the backbone of our idea. Plus an illustration Savio did of a ‘soul cleaner’ that inspired us to develop the storyline of a magical spray that could help us get rid of many of the issues we encounter in our daily lives.
Give us an insight, what are in your opinion the most successful ways -for creativity's sake, to avoid self-exploitations on social media?
A daily time limit. Too much input kills your output. Seeing what others do trigger a paralyzing feeling that’s best avoided. And setting a goal for the way that you intend to use it. Decide whether it is a leisure activity or a business opportunity and then create a strategy.
Which are the best and most futuristic channels for a more radical/decentralized way of promoting?
We think that the way promotion is evolving right now is more and more interesting. The line within intellectual figures and people belonging to the television and social media world is getting thinner and thinner. Many brands today try to explore different formats and ways to represent their products, collaborating with artists, philosophers, and critics; creating small films, tv shows, talk shows. So we should not think of commercial videos as we traditionally see commercials, but today a commercial video can be anything. This way, we would like to explore those frontiers within the formats and genres.
Who are the clients you would like to collaborate with very soon? (give me types, not names)
We are in awe of small brands that are unafraid of trying new things, and who stop caring about having to be perfect. A big campaign is a wonderful and exciting thing, but we love how social media really offers new opportunities to create formats, as it is this ever-evolving beautiful monster. We would love to explore what we can do within the range of fashion and accessory brands, beauty, but also the music industry offers a myriad of possibilities. Mainly we are looking for clients who aren’t afraid to get political and show true colours, brands who are looking for something different and want to push the needle.
What is the dream message you would like to promote?
We want to show beautiful people inside and out that represent the realities of our society. All the while letting the viewer escape that reality for a moment and enter a fantastic world.
If you could make an appeal to your future clients what would it say?
Do you like it campy? Do you like it glamorous? Do you like it beautiful? Call us. 0-800 Ciao Tschau.
interview DALIA MAINI
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