Benetton Advertising

Introduction and background
Part of Benetton success can be traced back to its advertising campaigns, famous worldwide for breaking with the traditional rules of printed ad - the “Benetton-Toscani effect”.

The era of conventional advertising, focusing mainly on Benetton’s products and logo (a stylization of a knot with the brand name thereunder) ended in 1982 when Oliviero Toscani, who worked as fashion photographer, has been hired by Luciano Benetton as head of the advertising department.

Toscani has been given an almost complete freedom in managing the company communications: in his view a contemporary and up-to-date brand should go against the conventionality of product-based apparel advertising.

According to him, “''to be successful advertising has to disconnect the message from the product [...] I use products to focus on the major problems besetting humanity. I’ve proved that it can be profitable. Since I was working for Benetton, the company has grown tenfold. Advertising people hate me but they have to admit that I’ve won.''”

Precisely in 1984 the logo was substituted with the tagline “United Colors of Benetton”. Colors ceased to be a feature distinguishing the manufacturer, expressing the brand’s innermost value: the idealistic vision of a united world in which all colors live together in harmony.

Over the years Benetton provocative campaigns received criticism from stakeholders and public opinion because of the exploitation of hot topics for profit-making. Nevertheless, this criticism created rumors around the brand with the effect of increasing awareness.

After the controversy around the “Death row campaign” (January 2000), in May Oliviero Toscani quit and Benetton opted for a midway strategy between the mere self-presentation as a clothing line and as a socially responsible brand concerned about non-controversial causes.

The research is focused on the most representative campaigns realized in the period of time between 1985 and 2012. Within the overall Benetton ad production it is possible to identify four main themes (religion, politics, sexuality, race and culture) united by a common feature: the representation of contrasting elements.

These campaigns are considered to be the most disruptive in comparison with the traditional advertising method: Benetton decided not to focus on the product itself but to associate the brand with universal social and political issues of the time. The result is something totally new to the advertising world and it still proves to be effective in increasing brand awareness.

Religion
Advertising is increasingly using religious symbols and characters to fulfill commercial tasks. However, this leads to controversy and even conflicts with religious institutions and groups which found ads implying religious concerns blasphemous. And this is precisely the case of Benetton. The first "United Colors of Benetton" advertising campaign began to incorporate issues of world peace and harmony, by depicting people or objects associated with institutionalized religions. Examples are the ad with a Jewish guy close to a Muslim boy holding a globe (1985), the ad depicting rows of crosses in a cemetery (1991) crealy criticizing the Gulf War and the photo montage of a priest and a nun kissing on the lips (1992). Despite fallouts, Benetton justified the use of “Shock tactics” affirming that they “will work if you want to be known for your advert campaigns”. This statement confirms and supports the more recent UNhate campaign. “UNHATE” is also a foundation which “seeks to contribute to the creation of a new culture against hate” which make a significant impact on the international community. The impact was so big that the campaign was nicknamed “Shockvertising”. It first came up with a photo montage of Pope Benedict XVI kissing the Al-Azhar Cairo Mosque Imam, Ahmed el Tayyeb. On one side, the Vatican protested against the “unacceptable use” of the Pope’s image. On the other side, the Imam spokesman commented the advertisement as "irresponsible and absurd”. Because of the controversial of the ad, Benetton decided to withdraw the photo montage.

Politics
One of the first time where the company dealt with politics is the 2000 “Death row” campaign about death penalty. It has been launched worldwide showing some portraits of people who had been “sentenced to death”. The stated aim of the campaign was “Leaving aside any social, political, judicial or moral consideration” and “showing to the public the reality of capital punishment, so that no one around the world, will consider the death penalty neither as a distant problem nor as news that occasionally appear on TV.”. The campaign was supported by twenty-six condemned prisoners’ interviews, published on the website of the Benetton Group with the name of “We on Death Row”. After the campaign publishment, there were protests in the US. The families of the victims murdered by the portrayed prisoners, said that the memories of their loved ones were being abused for commercial gain. Another case is the UNHATE campaign of 2012, focused on representing both religious and state leaders kissing. The objective was to underline the need to overcome all forms of hate through cooperation and dialogue, forgetting out the differences which divide people. Because Benetton represented some of the most important state leaders, the campaign has sparked explicit words of disapproval against the commercial use of the image of the US President Barack Obama. Some explicit signs of indignation have been shown even in France where Christine Boutin, a candidate for Christian Democrats at the presidential elections in 2012, launched an invitation to boycott Benetton.

Sex
[[File:United-colors-of-benetton-fw-2011-by-josh-olins.jpg|thumb|220x220px|"Everybody is united by the Colors of Benetton - no matter your sex, race and culture."

]] With the “All are united” campaign the united colors of the clothing soon became a metaphor for the united skin tones of young people, coming from all over the world. It became one of the first slogan of Benetton ads, later transformed into “United Colors of Benetton”. The concept of union was so strong and consistent that, for the first time in history of commercial trademarks, the slogan actually became a trademark.

Among all the famous campaigns that deal with the most debated issue of the 90’s, AIDS and HIV, one of the most shocking picture is the iconic photograph showing the American activist David Kirby in his final moments. This picture (taken by journalist student Therese Frare) was used by Benetton in 1992 to face one of the most “unwanted” theme at the time: in those years AIDS was number one cause of death for U.S. men aged 25-44. Kirby’s family gave his blessing to Toscani to use the picture, seeing the advert as an opportunity to raise awareness: “Benetton is not using us, we are using benetton”. To make the pic even more real Toscani wanted to give color to the black and white Frare picture in order to made it look like a painting: the painting of a Jesus Christ dying of AIDS. Fallout from the campaign came from many sources, including the Catholic Church because of the allusion to the historical imagery of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus Christ after the crucifixion. Despite all the debate Kirby's father had the final say: “If that photograph helps someone… then it’s worth whatever pressure we have to go through”.

Race and culture
From the beginning of the collaboration with Oliviero Toscani, the company has tried their best to include in their advertisements all types of people and cultures. This approach has provided both extreme popularity but also controversy in their communications and charges for being opportunistic and hypocrite. Through his photographs Toscani and Benetton tried to facilitate the final aim of the company: send a message of unity, harmony and peace among cultures.

Benetton campaigns are built upon a main characteristic which is the use of stereotypes and racism categories. The differences between people are reduced to a sum of racial characteristics which are themselves the product of racial discrimination that is the issue which Benetton aimed to face.

Racism represented a constant in the history of Benetton advertisement. It is possible to identify three main periods:
 * At the beginning of the 80s, the topic of racism was enlightened by uniting in the same picture different people representing their own cultures.
 * At the beginning of the 90s, the images are simplified with a focus on the skin color and are more engaged in social and historical issues of the time.
 * At the end of the 90s, the process of simplification is even more accentuated and the racial advertisement arrives to its “heart”.

Other references

 * Das Gupta T., Race and racialization: essential readings, Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2007, pag. 252-254