The Sanremo 2026 Compliance Stakes: Navigating Viral Trends and Hidden Advertising

Sanremo is often called the "Italian Super Bowl", not just for its record-breaking 70% audience share, but for the €60 million advertising machine that fuels it. As the 2026 edition concludes, a new legal debate has emerged: where does artistic expression end and surreptitious advertising begin?

For international brands and legal observers, the Sanremo Music Festival is the ultimate laboratory for "Real-Time Marketing." However, as the digital and physical worlds converge through social games like FantaSanremo (fantasy-football style game where artists gain points for specific actions on stage), the regulatory risks for sponsors and artists have reached a tipping point.

The center of the storm this year was a simple orange flower, a gerbera, worn by artist Dargen D'Amico. What appeared to be a playful nod to a viral online game was immediately flagged by consumer associations as hidden advertising for Aperol. The case is now before AGCOM, the Italian Communications Authority.

Coinciding with the Leaders League Italy 2026 Research cycle for Intellectual Property, Innovation & Technology (Deadline: March 13), we sat down with Simona Lavagnini, Founding Partner at LGV Avvocati and a leading expert on AGCOM’s evolving powers, to decode the legal complexities of this "cross-media" era.

The controversy surrounding Sanremo 2026 and the FantaSanremo points system has sparked a significant debate. Beyond this specific episode, where is the legal line drawn today between an artistic reference or a social trend (like a game or a meme) and surreptitious advertising that requires regulatory intervention? From a legal standpoint, when does "Real-Time Marketing" cross the line into a compliance risk?

The Dargen D'Amico/orange gerbera episode exploded at Sanremo 2026 when the artist appeared during his second night singing performance wearing an orange gerbera. During the same period, this flower was used by Aperol for various marketing initiatives in connection with FantaSanremo (of which it is a sponsor),  as it is reminiscent of the color of the drink of the same name. Codacons, a consumer association, considered this to be hidden advertising and immediately appealed to AGCOM for the singer to be sanctioned.

To better understand this story, it should be noted that the gerbera has long been used within FantaSanremo as an ‘Easter egg’ capable of generating bonus points. The community is therefore encouraged to use it to generate points and interactions. This raises the question of whether Dargen D'Amico's gerbera is hidden advertising or a legitimate gesture of participation in a playful context connected to the Festival.

According to Italian and European Union legislation, hidden advertising is typically assessed on the basis of certain parameters. Often there is no evidence of a contractual link, and therefore objective parameters are used, such as the presence of the brand without an adequate connection to the editorial/artistic message, the insistence in the shots, and so on.

The case of Dargen D'Amico falls into a particularly gray area. The orange gerbera is not an Aperol brand, even though its color has currently been associated with Aperol itself and its marketing initiatives. This creates a somewhat evocative overlap of planes. At the same time, however, the gerbera is a flower of Sanremo (City of Flowers), has long been used in FantaSanremo, before any discussion of its possible commercial use even began, and has therefore also become part of the game's internal symbolic language.

Although the orange gerbera used by Dargen D'Amico was a recognizable and most likely non-random element of the artist's clothing, in the absence of any direct reference to the Aperol brands and given the existence of an alternative communicative context—namely, the playful and community-oriented dimension of FantaSanremo—classifying the gesture as hidden advertising seems questionable. In a case such as this, it would seem appropriate to identify actual evidence of a contractual or economic link between the brand and the artist. Without such evidence, the risk is exceeding in the application of the law: freedom of communication remains a fundamental value and, although it is necessary to prevent the manipulation of consumers, the law must avoid monopolizing colors, words, or forms of expression and must preserve adequate margins for artistic and cultural expression.

Your book "I nuovi poteri di AGCOM nell’online" explores the significant expansion of the Authority's role in the digital landscape. While your analysis primarily focuses on copyright and online platforms, it highlights a broader trend toward AGCOM's growing reach. Looking at hybrid cases like FantaSanremo, which seamlessly bridges the gap between digital "Easter eggs" and live mainstream TV. How do you see this general evolution of AGCOM’s online powers impacting the oversight of these increasingly complex cross-media phenomena?

My book deals with a series of new powers in the online world and copyright law that have recently been conferred on AGCOM, and raises the issue of the evolution of this independent authority, its specific characteristics, and future trends, even though it is not directly focused on the powers that the Authority exercises in advertising matters. Maybe this is the subject of a future book…

Anyway, with regard to the issues raised by hidden advertising, I personally believe that there is excessive regulation and also excessive competition between various authorities, not only AGCOM (Communications) but also AGCM (Antitrust/Competition), private bodies (such as IAP) and the ordinary judiciary. The real solution should not lie in overlapping competences between several authorities, or in the enactment of new rules, but rather in the correct enforcement of existing rules, bearing in mind the need to balance the various requirements in the field, namely, on the one hand, the protection of consumers (especially minors) and, on the other, the protection of freedom of expression, avoiding excesses in either direction.

This is no easy task, not least because behaviors—such as marketing strategies—in the multimedia society are constantly increasing and evolving, as demonstrated by the events surrounding the recent Milan-Cortina Olympics (with some cases of “ambush marketing”) and Sanremo 2026, not only with regard to Dargen D'Amico and the orange gerbera, but also the cases of Malika Ayane and Fedez. Malika Ayane promoted a product that has the same brand name as her song, thus superimposing the song title on the product brand. Fedez participated in Sanremo 2026 and, during the days of the festival, also took part in a meet & greet event linked to tobacco heating devices.

Looking at both Italian and international companies investing in the Italian market: today, everyone seeks virality and direct interaction with live events. From a legal perspective, what advice would you give to a Chief Marketing Officer or a General Counsel planning an instant marketing campaign linked to major events, to avoid sanctions for covert advertising or unfair commercial practices?

I would say that the main guideline is to pursue transparency and avoid shortcuts. This does not mean limiting initiatives and creativity, nor missing out on the many opportunities offered by technological innovation and convergence, but rather developing solid and clear guidelines for operational staff, so that when marketing initiatives are being planned, the essential conditions for lawful advertising are also taken into account: in short, a sort of “compliance by design” that aims to prevent problems rather than contain them ex post.

Ariston Theatre Photo: Created by Ferdinando Traversa via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.