The Brief

Netflix's Love & Gelato was a breezy YA romance-meets-travelogue set in Rome, with a bittersweet emotional core. Our team was tasked with developing the global poster campaign. My goal was to create a tagline that would speak to young viewers, tease the romantic discovery at the story’s heart, and make the film feel fresh against the backdrop of well-worn rom-com tropes.

The final line that went to poster: "Her Time to Rome." A travel pun. Light. Literal. Serviceable. But like many projects, the path to that line was where the real copy magic happened.

Creative Context

We were given early access to the film and script to develop lines that weren’t just pretty but purposeful. The film has emotional undertones, grief, identity, belonging, wrapped in a feel-good summer holiday fantasy. A tough tonal cocktail of not too cheesy, not too heavy.

What made it tricky:

• The target audience was mostly teen girls and Netflix YA audiences (think To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before)

• It was a romance, but with self-discovery at the centre

• Italy/ Rome was a co-star, not just a setting

• The film, though emotionally sweet, lacked the critical acclaim or standout plot hook that might do the selling itself

So the tagline had to work harder.

Strategic Copy Pillars

Location as liberation. Rome is where Lina is allowed to grow, grieve, and get messy.

Gelato as metaphor. Choices. Indulgence. Too many flavours. Youthful sweetness. Temporary pleasures. Emotional messes.

Coming-of-age heartache. The thrill and ache of first love. The identity shift after loss. The power of leaving home to find yourself.

Wordplay & wit. Given the YA tone, we explored playful puns, emotional tension, and accessible metaphors that didn’t try too hard to be poetic.

Sample Tagline Explorations

Gelato, Choices & Messiness. Flavour as metaphor, youthful chaos, emotional indecision.

• Every choice leaves a taste.

• Some flavours are worth the brain freeze.

• What melts isn’t wasted.

• The messiest decisions are the sweetest.

• Flavour of the week? Or forever?

• Eat. Grieve. Kiss. Repeat.

• Scoop. Swoon. Repeat.

• Too many flavours. Not enough time.

• Every scoop comes with a decision.

• When you don’t know who you are, try everything.

• Pick a flavour.

• Love is messy. Like gelato.

• Sometimes grief tastes like pistachio.

• She came for closure. She left with cravings.

Location, Loss & Self-Discovery. Rome as backdrop for grief, growth, and identity.

• A summer that melts everything she thought she knew.

• Some journeys take you further than a passport ever could.

• Some cities help you forget. Others help you feel.

• Before college. After heartbreak. Somewhere in Rome.

• Rome doesn’t care who you were at home.

• When in Rome… fall apart a little.

• Some ghosts follow you abroad.

• To taste everything, you have to let something melt.

• The city’s ancient. Her issues are brand new.

• You don’t move on. You move differently.

• Turns out, grief travels too.

• There’s a word in Italian for this kind of heartbreak. She never learned it.

• How do you say “who am I?” in Italian?

Love, Coming-of-Age & Emotional Chaos. Romantic confusion, first love, identity shifts.

• She wanted answers. She found options.

• Love is easy. Knowing what you want is harder.

• You never forget your first wrong decision.

• New country. New crush. Same old heart.

• First love hits different in a foreign timezone.

• He’s hot. He’s charming. She’s confused.

• She went to Rome to find her past. She stayed to choose her future.

• Lina came to Rome for answers. But found better questions.

• Some things are meant to melt.

• Part coming-of-age. Part falling-apart.

• Not all detours feel like it at the time.

• Some summers are for letting go. Others for finding out.

• One city. Too many versions of herself.

• The city helped. The boys complicated it.

Witty, Meta & Subversive One-Liners. YA tone, unexpected pivots, snarky charm.

• Meet-cute. Melt-down.

• Fell for a boy. Tripped over herself.

• Welcome to Rome. Please don’t fall in love.

• When in Rome... fall hard.

• She followed her mother’s footsteps. But she’s writing her own ending.

• Three flavours. Two boys. One summer.

• Some stories find you. Even when you're lost.

• Every choice leaves a flavour.

• All roads lead to Rome. Hers just took a little grief.

• She went to Rome to find her past. She stayed to choose her future.

The Result

Netflix landed on Her Time to Rome, a clean pun that prioritised simplicity and clarity for a global market. While not my personal favourite, the line was sticky, and played well in key territories.

Behind the scenes, my contribution was in establishing a broader tonal playground that balanced grief, self-growth, romance, and gelato. I wrote dozens of lines exploring the head/heart tension, the role of travel in transformation, and the magic of loving something that might melt.