On Monday, January 10th 2005, the so-called “Sirchia decree law” (which banned smoking in public places and public establishments) became effective. On that same day the association “Io fumo” (www.iofumo.it) was created with the goal of finding a sufficient number of signatures to propose a referendum to annul the law.

Without going into details of the association’s history, what is symbolic here is to retrace the communication procedure (created and carried-out by Eo Ipso), that in the arch of 24 hours brought the name of the association, its aim and its spokesmen into the heart of national and international debate.

Sunday, January 9th: The national media placed great importance on the introduction of this law. At this time none of the Eo Ipso employees knew what would happen the following day.

Monday, January 10th, 9 a.m. Marino Pessina, the Eo Ipso chief, arranged a meeting with four people on the staff. Its purpose was to define the key points to make the association known and to disseminate the referendum campaign. An hour later, at 10 o’clock, after detecting the main subjects and the ways to breach into the media, the first press release was sent to the most important Italian press agencies: a non-profit association, “Io Fumo”, was created with the purpose of changing the new law. Owners of public establishments who want to open a venue where smoking is allowed should be allowed to do so. Also there should be a room equipped with a window for smokers in all offices.

The Eo Ipso staff started working: contacts were put into action, the logo outlined, the web site sketched, interviews simulated and the strong and weak points of the proposal identified in order to instruct the association’s spokesmen. Two hours later, some radios were already breaking the news and the Repubblica’s and Corriere’s (two of the biggest Italian newspapers) web-sites were placing great importance on the request of the referendum (the “first page” would be lost at 5 p.m. to give way to Bossi’s ultimatum to Berlusoni). At 11,43 a.m. the association was born both officially and legally.

At 12,30 p.m. the “Io fumo” web site came on-line and shortly before 1 p.m., in the Eo Ipso headquarters Sky television cameras arrived to interview the president of “Io fumo”. During the day, Eo Ipso created another two press releases and managed to get them a place on television (Rai and Mediaset during the 8 p.m. edition) and in the newspapers. At the and of the day, the direct contact with journalists surpassed 150, with more than 200 editorial staff contacted. The next day, the campaign for the referendum promoted by “Io fumo” was published in 127 of the 162 Italian newspapers. In 43 of these newspapers the news item appeared on the front page. Even foreign press spoke about “Io fumo”, publishing interviews and analysis’ on the subject in the following days.

In three days, the ability of Eo Ipso journalists and communicators had carried the message of the association “Io fumo” on all the national channels (Tg1 had interviewed the president Marino Pessina -the video can be seen on the web site of the association- and spokesmen had attended 17 live broadcasts in one week), and in almost all the national newspapers, several periodicals and the international press (i.e. Herald Tribune, Sueddeutsche, New York Times and Pravda (synthesis of the press review is available on the web site www.iofumo.it).