ARCHIVEBMW X5 Takes the Monza Racetrack to the Sahara Desert
How BMW Italia Launched the New X5 With a Desert Racetrack Stunt BMW Italia's 2018 campaign for the...
Q8 Fly Campaign Reframes the Fuel Stop as a Moment of Freedom
Q8's 'Fly' is a 2018 integrated film and multi-channel campaign created by Havas Milan for the Italian market, positioning the Q8 fuel stop as a restorative, emotionally uplifting moment in any journey, symbolised by vehicles transforming into hot-air balloons and floating above the urban landscape.
Q8 launched 'Fly' on March 25, 2018, across television, outdoor billboards, point of sale, digital, social media, print, and radio in Italy. The campaign marked a significant strategic inflection point for the brand. Q8 — the retail fuel brand of Kuwait Petroleum International — retired its longstanding sailboat icon, which had represented the brand for approximately twenty years, replacing it with a hot-air-balloon symbol that became the visual and emotional spine of the entire 'Fly' concept, as reported by Little Black Book Online. The rebranding was not cosmetic. It carried a repositioning argument: that stopping at a Q8 station is not an interruption to a journey but a moment that makes the journey lighter, both literally and metaphorically.
The campaign was developed after Q8 selected Havas Village following an agency review involving three competing agencies in early 2018, according to reporting by engage.it and brand-news.it. Havas Milan led creative development while Havas Media handled media planning and buying, reflecting the integrated Havas Village model. The products promoted under the 'Fly' umbrella included Q8's performance fuels and ancillary services, woven into the broader narrative of personal refuelling. In the Italian automotive and industrial fuels landscape, the campaign represented one of the more emotionally ambitious pieces of brand communication the fuel retail category had produced in that period. The Clapboard Score for 'Fly' is 56 out of 100.
Q8 identified a distinctive emotional truth about driving in Italy. The fuel stop is one of the most functionally necessary but experientially neglected moments in automotive life — a pause that most drivers mentally subtract from their journey rather than integrate into it. Havas Milan's strategic proposition inverted that perception entirely, according to reporting by Little Black Book Online: the Q8 stop would be reframed as a moment of personal refuelling, one that makes the driver, not just the vehicle, ready to continue.
In Italy, the automotive fuels retail market is intensely competitive. ENI, through its Agip network, holds a dominant presence across the Italian forecourt landscape, while TotalEnergies also operates a significant retail fuel footprint in the country. For Q8 to differentiate within this environment, a functional fuels message alone was insufficient. The decision to anchor 'Fly' to an entirely new brand symbol — the hot-air balloon replacing the sailboat after roughly two decades — signalled that Q8 was pursuing emotional distinctiveness rather than competing on product specification claims alone, as noted by Little Black Book Online in its April 4, 2018 coverage.
The timing of the campaign also intersected with a broader moment of transition in the Italian automotive industry. According to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, Italy remained one of the largest vehicle markets in Europe during this period, sustaining substantial demand for fuel retail services. The multi-channel deployment across TV, outdoor, digital, social, print, radio, and point of sale ensured the repositioning message reached Italian drivers across every touchpoint relevant to automotive consumption behaviour, according to engage.it and brand-news.it.
The film at the centre of 'Fly' was directed by Fernando Livschitz and produced by BlowUpFilm, according to reporting by Little Black Book Online and missionline.it. Livschitz, known internationally for his visually inventive treatment of urban environments and motion, was a creatively coherent choice for a concept demanding photorealistic transformation sequences in which everyday cars appear to inflate and float above Italian cityscapes like hot-air balloons.
The creative directors on the campaign were Anthony Campolo and Luigi Fattore, working under executive creative director John Leek, as reported by Little Black Book Online. According to reporting by engage.it, Giovanni Porro also held an executive creative role within the Havas Milan team that produced 'Fly'. The layering of creative leadership reflected the scale of ambition: this was not a tactical product advertisement but a full brand repositioning expressed through cinematic craft.
The visual concept translated Q8's new hot-air-balloon brand mark into a narrative logic. Vehicles arriving at Q8 stations are shown undergoing a transformation — their forms softening and lifting, mimicking the ascent of a balloon — before the film returns the viewer to the road, now experienced as something lighter and more freeing. The urban Italian environment provided a grounded, recognisable contrast to the floating imagery, reinforcing the emotional argument that the Q8 stop changes the texture of the journey itself. The multi-channel execution extended the visual language from television film through to outdoor billboards and point of sale materials, creating consistency across the full Italian media landscape. Havas Media's involvement in planning ensured the film reached its intended audience across the most relevant automotive and lifestyle contexts.
No verified performance data for the Q8 'Fly' campaign is publicly available in terms of sales uplift, brand tracking shifts, or media reach figures. Havas and Q8 have not published quantified campaign results in any accessible trade or industry source. What can be assessed is the structural and creative architecture of the campaign against the strategic problem it was built to solve.
'Fly' demonstrates strong alignment between strategic intent and creative execution. The decision to debut an entirely new brand symbol — the hot-air balloon replacing a two-decade-old sailboat icon — through a cinematic film, rather than a static announcement, was structurally sound: it gave the new identity an emotional context before audiences encountered it as a logo. The multi-channel deployment across television, outdoor, digital, social, print, radio, and point of sale in Italy ensured the new visual language achieved saturation across automotive touchpoints, according to reporting by Little Black Book Online and missionline.it.
The campaign earned substantive trade coverage at launch, with Little Black Book Online publishing a dedicated review on April 4, 2018, under the headline 'Q8 Takes to the Skies with New Identity by Havas Milan' — a signal of industry recognition for the creative and strategic coherence of the work. The selection of Fernando Livschitz as director, a filmmaker with an established reputation for technically precise urban transformation imagery, reflects investment in production quality commensurate with the ambition of a full brand repositioning. Against the competitive Italian fuel retail landscape, where ENI Agip holds category dominance, 'Fly' represents a credible attempt to shift Q8's brand conversation from functional to emotional territory.
Q8's 'Fly' is a 2018 brand repositioning campaign created by Havas Milan, launched in Italy on March 25, 2018. It introduced a new hot-air-balloon brand symbol to replace Q8's sailboat icon, positioning the fuel stop as a restorative moment that makes any journey lighter, across TV, outdoor, digital, social, print, and radio.
Fernando Livschitz directed the 'Fly' film for Q8. BlowUpFilm served as the production company. Livschitz is known for visually inventive treatment of urban environments, making him a fitting choice for a concept built around vehicles transforming into hot-air balloons above Italian cityscapes, as reported by Little Black Book Online.
Q8 retired its sailboat icon after approximately twenty years, replacing it with a hot-air-balloon symbol to support a strategic repositioning. The new identity reinforced the campaign's core argument — that a Q8 fuel stop makes the journey emotionally lighter — giving the brand a more aspirational and distinctive presence in Italy's competitive fuel retail market, according to Little Black Book Online.
Havas Milan created 'Fly' for Q8 Italy. Q8 selected Havas Village following a competitive agency review involving three agencies in early 2018, according to reporting by engage.it and brand-news.it. Havas Milan led creative development while Havas Media handled media planning and buying across the campaign's full multi-channel Italian rollout.
The Q8 'Fly' creative team at Havas Milan included creative directors Anthony Campolo and Luigi Fattore, executive creative director John Leek, and executive creative Giovanni Porro, as reported by Little Black Book Online and engage.it. Their combined leadership reflects the scale of ambition behind a campaign designed to reposition an entire fuel retail brand in Italy.
Q8's 'Fly' campaign received a Clapboard Score of 56 out of 100. The score reflects competent strategic alignment and strong production craft in the Italian automotive category, balanced against limited public performance data and the inherent challenges of repositioning a fuel retail brand in a market with established competitors such as ENI Agip.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
