United_Against_Ugliness is the tagline used by Lancia to promote its new Ypsilon car. The campaign is now online with a series of ads and a microsite created by Testawebedv, packed with content (image gallery, interactive tv, screensavers, car configurator etc...). The UAU (United_Against_Ugliness) movement is going around the country visiting 27 Italian cities to diffuse the concept of beauty & safety.

It's surely good to see such an integrated marketing effort in Italy (maybe someone is waking up, uh?), however the campaign has some controversial points. The Tv spot for example (you can watch it on the site) features hundreds young adults marching against ugliness. A lot of people have been marching in the past to defend human rights or to fight for freedom, from this perspective the Lancia ad appears to be an unnecessary parody. Furthermore, from a sociological point of view, the UAU concept is a celebration of the aesthetic values (can we consider them values?) visual consuption.

If you're interested in visual consumption, I suggest you reading this book.