In 1923 Italian Military Aviation was established as a self-standing armed force, named Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force, but in fact, literally, Royal Air Navigation). In a few years, her men got a lot of air-records, and this was exploited. This remarkable quantity of records sounded interesting and appealing. So, commercial companies began using the Air Force as their advertising testimonial. Being it a highly technological Armed Force, they linked their message to the mainly technological aspect, that is to say: the record obtained was linked through the image to the engines, that is to say to technical aspects.

It is hard to say whether this approach succeeded or not. The products belonged usually to two different kinds. There were technical parts, such as parts of engines, and daily-life items, like watches, or drinks. As a matter of facts, this kind of advertising in fact excluded women as potential buyers, due to the kind of offered and showed products, but, on the other side, did not, or could not, attract this so much people, due to the often highly specialized – for that time – kind of goods or tools offered through advertising.

The paper briefly tells this story, describes the kind of companies and their products, focusing on their reduced diffusion among the consumers and on their lack of appeal, especially on women. Anyway, the Air Force was used as a testimonial of high quality products, whose producers, by the way, survived and, most of them, are still industrially active.