Decca’s Cecilia Bartoli Superfan campaign backfires

ByGramilano Reading Time: 2 minutes

Cecilia Bartoli The superfan hunt

Are you ‘s BIGGEST fan?

Decca is trying to whip up excitement about Cecilia Bartoli’s new album, St Petersburg, precisely where it isn’t needed. Her fans are excited anyway, aren’t they? If you get an “OFFICIAL SUPERFAN STATUS” – yells the blurb – you will also get an “official Cecilia Bartoli Superfan pin badge as well as a signed copy of her forthcoming new album!” All very official then.

Of course, Bartoli’s biggest fans are slightly different to Katy Perry’s, and are not much interested in pin badges. In fact the real fans – those of the Cecilia Bartoli Forum (not official) were hurt by the campaign:

If there wasn’t that ‘official Cecilia Bartoli Superfan pin badge’, I wouldn’t care that much about it. This I find quite humiliating.

and

What a stupid competition between so called fans. I can’t believe that Cecilia agreed to this ignorant campaign.

Well, of course, she probably didn’t. An idea was floated by her by some Decca whiz-kid about involving her fan base and she thought, why not! Or maybe they’re trying to woo over Perry and Bieber’s fans, though that seems a lost cause.

Whatever, Bartoli’s discs certainly don’t need adolescent hype, and her non-official superfans are going to buy the cd and go to her concerts anyway, whether they are sporting a badge or not.

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Graham Spicer, aka 'Gramilano', is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.

Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.

He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.

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