Comparative Advertising: free Swedish TV and Mr Berlusconi

February 2005. State-funded Sveriges Television choose the Italian tycoon Silvio Berlusconi as a negative testimonial of its free TV campaign.

COMPARATIVE ADVERTISING: advertising in which a competitor's product is named and compared with the advertiser's product (source: Merriam Webster dictionary online). Needless to say, you need a lousy competitor in order to brag about the great feature of your product.

Berlusconi on TV

That's exactly what Sweden national television broadcaster (Sveriges Television – SVT) does in 2005. In order to advertise the most significant feature of its product – freedom – goes for something (or someone) that is the denial of liberty, and so decides to “hire” Berlusconi and his close friend Mr Putin.

They both appeared in SVT commercials, which – in the case of the Italian politician – says: “Silvio Berlusconi controls Italy's national television broadcasters' 92 per cent. In 2001 he was elected prime minister following a massive TV campaign. In the aftermath a court asked him to give away one of his TVs, but the law was changed and the sentence lost its power. SVT, free TV”.

Video from our YouTube Channel: Berluschannel

The commercial ad's music track is a mandolin-played version of “'O sole mio”, possibly as a tribute to the Italian premier's legendary appreciation of Neapolitan folk music. Quite a funny picture of Berlusconi.

When Italian foreign ministry summons Sweden's ambassador to complain about the ad he can only say that “the media in Sweden are independent and free” (in other words it's not her problem). Are there many chances that the Italian entrepreneur and TV monopolist understood what she was talking about?