Audio-visuals

In this section, users can consult the audio-visual materials produced or commissioned by Pirelli for advertising or documentation purposes from the 1910s to the 2000s. Films from the first half of the twentieth century are documentary in nature, with movies such as those made during the journeys of the Città di Milano cable-laying ship, or the visits by royalty to Pirelli factories in Italy and abroad, as well as documentation of some production processes in various factories of the Group.

Advertising audio-visuals started to be made in the 1950s, commissioned by the Propaganda Department and then, until the mid-1980s, by the Agenzia Centro, the Pirelli Group's in-house advertising agency.

The first commercials for the cinema – directed by the brothers Nino and Toni Pagot in the 1950s – are followed by those for television, first for the Carosello programme and then, in the 1980s, for commercial television stations. The production of audio-visual advertisements became widespread during this decade, not only in Italy but also in the various countries where Pirelli worked and where the various subsidiaries made their own targeted advertising campaigns for their markets.

In the 1990s, global campaigns began to be entrusted to large agencies such as Young & Rubicam and Armando Testa.