The Vespa butterfly campaign has emerged from its cocoon, with a 30-second cinema incarnation set to hatch next month during the Toronto International Film Festival. It builds on the wild posting campaign that broke in late spring, featuring installations of six interpretations by artists from around the world of the Vespa as a butterfly.

‘It kind of emanated from this spring-has-sprung mentality,’ says Morey Chaplick, president of Toronto-based Canadian Scooter Corp. The spot features a dark cocoon that bursts into a psychedelic, colourful Vespa butterfly, set to groovy music. ‘We wanted to tap into this retro feel – Vespa is an icon of the sixties,’ says Glen Hunt, creative catalyst at Toronto-based Dentsu Canada.

Vespa is debuting the spot at TIFF to leverage its partnership with Toronto-based Tribute Entertainment Media Group, which will have a VIP lounge during the festival where celebs passing through will be asked to sign two Vespas to be auctioned off for charity.

Meanwhile, the spring postering efforts have been so well received, Dentsu has already asked artists to submit work for another poster initiative next spring.

‘People are stealing [the posters], people are calling our office asking where to get them,’ says Chaplick adding that they’ve been telling callers they can have a set of the six posters for free if they stop by a retail location. He estimates that they’ve given away 100 sets thus far, and plans are in the works to do t-shirts and mugs with the designs, too – for sale and for swag with Vespa purchases.

‘It completely goes with our guerilla marketing strategy,’ Chaplick says. ‘The bottom line is, we’d never be able to make the amount of noise we’ve been able to make using traditional media.’

client: Morey Chaplick, president; Jeremy Logan, VP marketing, Canadian Scooter Corp.

creative catalyst/ copywriter: Glen Hunt

AD: Deborah Prenger

agency producer: Amanda Loughran

account supervisor: Aurelio DiLuciano