Davide Mardegan

For young talent struggling to break into the ad racket, Davide Mardegan has made things look inspiringly easy. All you’ve got to do, it seems, is make a beautiful test spot for no product in particular that is focused enough to convey a message and broad enough to get big brands from several industries fighting to buy it.

After studying philosophy at university – during which time he also travelled the world photographing free-climbing – Mardegan completed a Masters in writing and film production at Rome’s LUISS University. In 2009, he learned direction at the School of Visual Arts in New York and returned home to Milan last year with the intention of working in advertising.

After brief stints in the director-scouting departments of two production companies, Mardegan teamed up with copywriter Clemente De Muro and Niccolò Dal Corso, executive producer for Lux Vide, and the three formed CRIC, their own creative agency with a twist. Their first project (and Mardegan’s directorial debut) was an entry for the 2010 Cannes Young Lions competition. It showed G8 leaders as little kids in the classroom, being taught their responsibility to bring water to developing nations in support of WaterAid.

It was CRIC’s next project, however, that caused a massive stir in the Italian ad world. Because I Like You is a heart-warming story voiced by a young boy writing a letter to his sweetheart, while we watch an elderly postman going about his daily business. At the end, it transpires that the old man was in fact the little boy and he is still married to the same girl. It was made as a test spot with no branding. CRIC’s idea was to make an ad first and sell it later.

The trio touted it to several brands, but when nobody was willing to take a gamble they decided to upload the spot to their Vimeo and Facebook pages. Ten days and nearly three million views later, the brands came crawling back. “We certainly didn’t expect such a success, but we were quite sure that people would love it,” says Mardegan. “Thanks to the internet, you can have immediate feedback on your work. If it is good, people respond immediately. The key point is that it doesn’t matter if the pack-shot of your product lasts longer; what really matters is to tell something that it is worth being heard or seen. Something that can match the true desires of your audience.”

CRIC sold the spot to Poste Italiane, the Italian national postal service. “The final decision was not focused on the highest offer, but on the client ready to share with us the vision of the project,” says the director. Two sequels will follow, and Mardegan is considering offers of representation from several production houses. It’s a dream start to a director’s career, but he remains humble: “I don’t know if I deserve the success. The only thing I can say is that the success depends on people loving your work and nothing more.”

The trio aren’t happy to sit back and let work come to them, though, and are already working on more unbranded projects. “We have all previously worked for major agencies and production companies in Italy,” says Mardegan. “We have seen some beautiful ideas destroyed by too many constraints, needing too many ‘approvals’. We want to think with no restrictions, trying to do our best to make our product popular.” With the career start he’s had, popularity isn’t looking like a problem. In fact, for Mardegan it’s all looking a bit easy.