Coop Italia, the leading Italian large-scale retail group, decided to celebrate and tell the story of the first 70 years of its own-brand products, with the exhibition “Coop_70. Valori in scatola” [Coop_70. Packaged Values], which drew over 15,000 visitors.  The exhibition also hosted a wide range of side events, conceived, planned and created by Elastica, which enlivened the area of the Milan Triennial.

A series of events focused on the history and the values of the famous brand of Italian products, as well as on innovation in the style of visual communication, ranging from television commercials to graphic design, as well as policies regarding sustainability and the environment, climate, lifestyles and consumer trends.

The seventy-year history of Coop products began with a black and white commercial by Ugo Gregoretti and in recent years has been reinterpreted using the graphics and inspiration of Marco Dambrosio, also known as Makkox, who created a web series of 16 videos (and 40 panels) for this important birthday.  Elastica coordinated the collaboration between Makkox and Coop for the whole of 2018, starting with the 70-year calendar and followed by cartoons and the 2019 calendar.

To mark the occasion, the cartoonist created a spin-off featuring two new characters, an ignorant layabout main character and the alter ego of the illustrator.  The character is struggling to achieve his goal of becoming more aware of what he eats, as a way of telling the story of Coop’s commitment to the environment.

Tommaso Labate was the presenter for the final evening show, featuring a partly serious, partly funny conversation between Marco Pedroni the President of Coop Italia and Makkox, with guests including Maura Latini, the Director General of CoopItalia, and the semiologist and puzzle enthusiast Stefano Bartezzaghi, who “played” linguistically with the 6 values that distinguish Coop’s activities.