Exercise 6

United Colours of Beneton Campaings from 1980's to 2000's

Since the 1980s Benetton has gained a reputation for shock-advertising that has whipped-up controversy and stimulated debate - and helped boost the brand recognition of the Italian fashion giant.

"Advertising is the richest and most powerful form of communication in the world. We need to have images that will make people think and discuss. Ad agencies are obsolete, they're out of touch with the times; they're far too comfortable. When the client is happy, they stop trying. They don't want to know what's going on in the world. They create a false reality and want people to believe in it. We show reality and we're criticized for it (14). - Oliviero Toscani on advertising

‘Probably the most widely publicized cases of shock advertisements include the advertising campaigns produced by clothing makers Benetton and Calvin Klein'

1982- These radical advertisements began in 1982

http://heatherlongbottom95.blogspot.com/p/term-1.html

Luciano Benetton, meets a photographer, Oliviero Toscano, in 1982 who shows him that a focus of message over product could be more effective. In that year, Toscano creates the above work.Vaguely Blakean in its Romanticism, two innocent young girls — one white, one black — embrace one another. But are they really as innocent as each other? There seems to be an imbalance. The girl on the left has the hair and cheeks of a cherub, of an angel. The other girl has her hair spiked up like devil horns and resists a smile. Although attempting a “uniting” effect, the ad fails in its racist shortcomings, separating colors into good and evil. 

The race campaign, started in 1989

The race campaign has won many international photography and advertising awards and has also been the cause of many arguments and controversies.

One of the images, of a black woman breast-feeding a white infant, was met with controversy from the black community in the United States. The people felt that the image perpetuated the stereotype of a black woman being a nanny to white children.

An image in which three young children are facing the camera and sticking out their tongues was
used in a worldwide advertisement in 1991. An unforeseen cultural taboo caused a minor problem in Arab countries, where the image was deemed "pornographic" because you can't display any internal organs.

1991-Culture

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall01/braun/frames.html

Campaign that used familiar images from different cultures and placed them side by side. This campaign's aim was to show that people, no matter what their cultural differences may be, can get along. Be it religion or nationality, no difference is too great.

1992 - The AIDS VIRUS

David Kirby, an AIDS activist and sufferer, was photographed on his death bed, surrounded by his family, for LIFE magazine. Benetton was given permission from David's parents to show it all over the world in this campaign.

In some countries, such as Paraguay, this was the first advertising campaign to publicly discuss AIDS and in most countries it was the first to show the actual victims of the disease (10).

Of course, the fact that David happens to somewhat resemble Christ, and became known as a 'pieta' only added to the success (and the many protests) for this campaign.

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall01/braun/frames.html

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall01/braun/frames.html

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall01/braun/frames.html

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall01/braun/frames.html

This campaign, like so many other Benetton campaigns, was met with controversy. The older, more conservative population thought it was inappropriate subject matter, but the younger generation embraced the campaign whole-heartedly. In the U.S. the image was censored by the media, because it was deemed "pornographic" and thus inappropriate for distribution through traditional press outlets, such as supermarkets

1994 Baby we'll get you through this

http://top10buzz.com/top-ten-controversial-united-colors-of-benetton-ads/

A birth, the symbol of life. That is the instant value of this image. It is about as brutal as anyone would care to have it, representing childbirth in a much truer fashion than most films. But the pains of first breath is just the beginning: this is another image from the 1993 AIDS campaign

1994 Red to your Head

In 1994, Benetton takes the uniform of a fallen Bosnian soldier brutally wearing its red (the most uniting color of all, no?) and bullet holes. This was conveniently at the height of the war’s presence in western media where it became the issue of human rights with its thousand-fold complications.

1996 white black yellow

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/benetton-history-shocking-ad-campaigns-pictures-252087

"In the consistent message of love, which organ should be chosen but the heart? This echoes the words of none other than Shakespeare: If you prick us, do we not bleed? On the inside we are all the same, white, black, yellow (although we might argue that these are contestable titles). The clinical grotesqueness of the hearts is married to their poetic value as pseudo-roses, side by side. They inhabit a space between ugliness and beauty, between violence and peace."

 - http://top10buzz.com/top-ten-controversial-united-colors-of-benetton-ads/#sthash.aDvaPS4m.dpuf

2000 Death Penalty

Benetton Company's most controversial ad campaign to date is the one that focused on the death penalty. The 6-million-copy, 13-language campaign was launched in January of 2000

Pro life message - 1996 marks a challenge to capital punishment, a subject much more contestable than any we’ve seen to date. The idea of using convicted criminals as models for a high-end fashion label isn’t the first to come up at a board meeting.

2011-UNHATE

The unHate series marks the enunciation of a new political position, which had already been hinted at. Rather than love, that can fail us sometimes, a message of unhate (like a child’s rendition of the term) continues with their earlier political positions while encompassing the present issues

Pro: Benetton ads normalize skin colors other than white. And look at that happy ethnic baby snuggling with that happy ethnic child! White kids playing with black kids! It was a festival of warm fuzzy feelings for Leftists everywhere. 

Con: Benetton ads basically whitewashed the truth, which is that the world is racist, and to pretend otherwise is naïve. Benetton ads won't end racism, but since they make you feel like they might, they coax you into buying their clothes. Thus, it's just another greedy corporate money grab clothing itself cynically in the garments of the progressive Left. Also, the ads play up racial stereotypes, like a black woman dressed in African tribal garb, and an Asian woman wearing a kimono