ARCHIVEFiorucci and McCann Turn a Salami Board Into a Peace Statement
Fiorucci's 'The Board of Peace' is a 2015 direct campaign created by McCann Worldgroup Milan that uses a single static image of a salami charcuterie board arranged to form a peace symbol, delivering a pacifist message through the visual language of Italian food culture in the Italian market.
The campaign launched in Italy in June 2015, produced by McCann Worldgroup Milan on behalf of Fiorucci, one of Italy's most recognised processed-meat brands. Conceived as a direct-format execution, it rests entirely on one media asset — a carefully composed photograph in which cured meats, including salami, are arranged on a board to construct the universally legible peace symbol. The simplicity of the mechanic is deliberate: no headline competes with the image, no copy over-explains the metaphor. The work invites the viewer to complete the idea themselves, a technique that rewards attentive audiences and suits the compact, high-attention environment of direct communications.
In Italy, where salumi culture carries deep regional pride and social ritual, the choice of a shared charcuterie board as the vehicle for a peace message carries genuine cultural weight. The board — a communal object, something passed between people at a table — becomes a natural metaphor for shared humanity. Fiorucci, whose product range spans prosciutto, salami, and mortadella according to News Italianfood, occupies precisely this domestic and convivial territory in the Italian Food and Drink category. The campaign's title itself plays on the phonetic proximity of 'piece' and 'peace', a bilingual pun that the archive listing at Clapboard records as 'The board of piece', while the creative intent resolves as 'The Board of Peace'. That dual spelling is not an error so much as an embedded layer of meaning: a piece of salami and a piece of peace become the same offer.
ARCHIVEFiorucci operates in a highly fragmented market. According to GlobalData, the top five global meat brands combined held less than eight percent of the overall market in 2015, meaning no single player could claim category dominance through scale alone. In that environment, brand distinctiveness — the ability to occupy a singular emotional or cultural position — becomes the primary competitive lever.
McCann Worldgroup Milan had already established a subversive creative playbook for Fiorucci. According to largoconsumo.info, the agency launched a repositioning campaign for the brand in 2013, anchored by a ninety-second mockumentary television film that aired on 26 February 2013, shortly after the Italian elections. That film used satire to connect Italian political dysfunction with the pleasures of Fiorucci cured meats — a strategy that positioned the brand as knowing, irreverent, and culturally alert. Regular fifteen-second executions began airing in April 2013 alongside new product launches, per largoconsumo.info, extending the campaign across television and social media. 'The Board of Peace' in 2015 represents a refinement of that same sensibility: instead of satirising dysfunction, it proposes harmony, but the mechanism — using salumi as a vehicle for social commentary — remains consistent.
In the Italian processed-meat category, Fiorucci's closest competitive pressure comes from large-scale producers such as Cremonini and the broader portfolio of brands within the Veronesi group, both of which compete primarily on product quality, heritage credentials, and retail price positioning. Neither competitor had, at the time, adopted the kind of idea-led direct communication that 'The Board of Peace' represents. By committing to a single powerful image rather than a product-demonstration format, McCann Milan and Fiorucci staked a position at the intersection of food culture and social idealism — territory that neither Cremonini nor Veronesi occupied in 2015. The strategic logic is straightforward: in a fragmented market where product parity is high, the brand that earns cultural attention wins consideration.
The creative execution of 'The Board of Peace' is defined by restraint. One static image carries the entire argument, which means every element of that image — the arrangement of the meat, the choice of board, the lighting, the negative space — must function both as appetising food photography and as legible iconography. The peace symbol formed from salami and cured meats must read instantly, without ambiguity, or the idea collapses.
The credited creative team brings together senior international talent working within McCann Worldgroup Milan. Chief creative officer Alessandro Sabini oversaw the work. Creative direction was shared across Gaetano Del Pizzo, Gastón Guetmonovitch, and Alessandro Sciortino. The copy was written by Curro Piqueras, with art direction by Eoin Sherry. Agency producer Michele Virgilio managed production, and senior consultant Alessandro Laudati provided strategic counsel. The composition of this team — with Spanish and Irish names alongside Italian ones — reflects the internationalised structure of a global network agency operating in Milan, and arguably reinforces the universalist ambition of the peace message itself.
The decision to pursue a direct-format, single-asset execution rather than a broadcast or digital campaign places the entire creative burden on composition and concept. There is no narrative arc, no character, no music, no motion. What exists is a moment of recognition: the viewer sees salami, then sees a peace symbol, then understands the pun embedded in the title. That sequence — perception, recognition, comprehension — is completed in seconds, which is both the constraint and the achievement of the work. In the Italian Food and Drink advertising landscape of 2015, where television remained the dominant medium for category communications, choosing a static direct piece as the primary expression of a brand idea was itself a statement of creative confidence. Production credits for the photographer or production company behind the image are not publicly documented beyond the agency team listed above.
No verified sales performance data or consumer-reach metrics for 'The Board of Peace' are publicly available. What the public record does confirm is the campaign's standing within the professional awards circuit, which serves as the most accessible proxy for peer-assessed creative quality in the absence of disclosed campaign metrics.
The campaign received a Cannes Lions 2015 shortlist in the Promo and Activation category, according to Clapboard. That shortlist recognition places the work among the globally reviewed entries at advertising's most scrutinised annual competition. Separately, according to Blog Adci, the campaign won a Bronze award at the ADCI Awards 2015 in the Outdoor category and received an additional shortlist in the Design category at the same event. The ADCI — the Art Directors Club of Italy — represents the primary domestic benchmark for Italian creative excellence, making the Bronze a meaningful signal of standing within the Italian market specifically.
Clapboard assigns 'The Board of Peace' a score of 64 out of 100. That score reflects a campaign with a sharp, well-executed central idea and legitimate industry recognition, offset by its limited media footprint — one asset, one format, no documented extension — and the absence of any verified audience or commercial impact data. The structural effectiveness of the work is real: a single image that generates a layered reading (food, symbol, pun) is precisely the kind of execution that earns attention in direct communications. The constraint of a single asset, however, also limits the campaign's ability to demonstrate sustained brand-building across multiple touchpoints, which tempers the overall assessment.
'The Board of Peace' is a 2015 direct campaign created by McCann Worldgroup Milan for Italian salumi brand Fiorucci. It uses a single static image of cured meats, including salami, arranged on a board to form a peace symbol, delivering a pacifist message through Italian food culture. The campaign launched in Italy in June 2015.
The campaign archive at Clapboard records the title as 'The board of piece', while the creative intent resolves as 'The Board of Peace'. The dual spelling is a deliberate bilingual pun: 'piece' refers to a piece of salami, while 'peace' carries the pacifist message, with both meanings operating simultaneously within the single image.
McCann Worldgroup Milan created the campaign. The team included chief creative officer Alessandro Sabini, creative directors Gaetano Del Pizzo, Gastón Guetmonovitch, and Alessandro Sciortino, copywriter Curro Piqueras, art director Eoin Sherry, and agency producer Michele Virgilio. McCann Milan had also handled Fiorucci's 2013 repositioning campaign.
The campaign earned a Cannes Lions 2015 shortlist in the Promo and Activation category, according to Clapboard. It also won a Bronze at the ADCI Awards 2015 in the Outdoor category and received an ADCI shortlist in Design, according to blog.adci.it, confirming recognition at both international and Italian industry levels.
Fiorucci competed in a highly fragmented Italian processed-meat market where, according to GlobalData, the top five global meat brands held less than eight percent of overall market share in 2015. McCann Milan pursued idea-led creative work to build brand distinctiveness, continuing a strategy established with Fiorucci's satirical 2013 repositioning campaign.
Clapboard assigns 'The Board of Peace' a score of 64 out of 100. The rating reflects a sharp central concept and legitimate industry recognition at Cannes Lions and the ADCI Awards, balanced against a limited media footprint of one static asset and the absence of any publicly verified audience or commercial performance data.
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