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Benetton group:
Unconventional advertising
Senthil Ganesan*
The purpose of advertising is not to sell more. It’s to do with institutional publicity, whose aim is to
communicate the company’s values (...) We need to convey a single strong image, which can be
shared anywhere in the world.
– Luciano Benetton, Founder Chairman
I am not here to sell pullovers, but to promote an image... Benetton’s advertising draws public
attention to universal themes like racial integration, the protection of the environment, Aids...
– Oliviero Toscani, Benetton Art Director and Photographer
Benetton Group: Unconventional Advertising The group’s principal brands included United Colors
of Benetton (UCB), Sisley, PlayLife, Nordica, Prince,
Rollerblade, and Killer Loop.
The Benetton family (comprised of three brothers
and a sister) established the Benetton chain in a small
Italian town in 1955. To support his family, Luciano
Benetton (born 1935), dropped out of school to sell
apparel. His sister Guiliana (born 1937) worked as a
knitter in a local factory. Recognizing the potential
for a new business, Luciano and Guiliana decided to
start their own apparel company. They started off
small by selling sweaters and as the business grew,
the remaining two brothers joined in the activities of
the company. Each of the four siblings took
responsibility for one aspect of the business—Luciano
B
enetton Group is engaged in the
manufacturing and distribution of clothing, concentrated on marketing; Guiliana directed the
undergarments, shoes, cosmetics and design department; Gilberto (born 1941) handled
accessories. Benetton also licensed its brand name administration and finance; and Carlo (born 1943)
for a number of products like sunglasses, stationery, managed production. As business picked up, the
cosmetics, linens, watches, toys, steering wheels and company entered into an agreement to open a store
knobs for automobile gearshifts, golf equipments, for the exclusive marketing of apparel. The first store
designer condoms, luggage and designer pagers, etc. was opened in 1969 and was an immediate success.
* Senthil Ganesan is a Faculty at ICFAI Knowledge Center, an affiliate of ICFAI. His areas of interest include Company Analysis and
Industry Analysis.
The same year, it went overseas by opening a similar The company opted for a communication strategy
store in Paris. Unlike most small producers, who opted in which issues and not clothes, play the lead part.
for the widest possible distribution, they decided to The company has decided to devote some of its
create a network of exclusive distributors, and used advertising budget to communicate on themes
sub-contractors. The chain soon expanded across relevant to young and old people worldwide.”
the world and established strong brand equity. The
Until the 1980s, Benetton advertisements were of
company is listed in Milan, London, Frankfurt, New
the traditional form and largely focused on its products
York, Toronto and Tokyo stock exchanges. As of 2001, and logo (stylized knot of yarn with word Benetton
the company operated in about 120 countries through
printed under it, contained within a dark green
more than 7,000 retail stores.
rectangle). In 1982, Luciano Benetton hired Oliviero
Benetton is one of the strongest brands in the world Toscani, a prominent fashion and advertisements
and adding to its popularity is the company’s photographer to head the advertising department of
advertising strategy. The the company. Toscani’s initial
biggest accolade that the advertisements were
company received was for its conventional in style showing
practice to separate its products Unlike most advertisements groups of young people
from advertisements. Benetton which centered around a wearing Benetton clothing.
is well-known across the world company’s product or image, Luciano and Toscani soon
for its unusual advertising realized that Benetton
techniques and themes, most Benetton’s advertising advertisements had to stand
of them bordering on campaigns addressed social apart from the rest of the
controversy and debate. and political issues competition and also from the
Benetton utilized “shock value” standard practices of the
and the reality of photographs advertising industry. They
to grab viewer’s attention and decided to promote Benetton
to make their brand name memorable. Unlike most as a “life style accessory” and not as a clothing brand.
advertisements which centered around a company’s Toscani’s first theme featured teenagers and kids
product or image, Benetton’s advertising campaigns
from culturally diverse nations. Colorfully dressed in
addressed social and political issues like racial
Benetton attire, the kids engaged in a variety of playful
integration, AIDS awareness, war, poverty, child acts. By linking the varying colors in the Benetton
labor, death, pollution etc. The company tried more
collection to the diverse “colors” of its world
to “communicate” to the world about these issues
customers, Toscani portrayed a picture of racial
rather than to “sell” apparel and accessories. harmony and world peace. It was from these
The way of the advertisements advertisements that the world famous inspirational
trademark “United Colors of Benetton” emerged.
Benetton has earned worldwide recognition by
creating advertisement themes that promote diversity In 1984, the company launched a similar campaign
and various other social causes. The company strives
to promote itself as a socially responsible business,
by supporting social organizations and discussing
moral issues in its print campaigns throughout the
world. Various company literature highlight Benetton’s
advertisement strategy:
“Benetton believes that it is important for
companies to take a stance in the real world
instead of using their advertising budget to
perpetuate the myth that they can make consumers
happy through the mere purchase of their product.
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GLOBAL CEO n November 2002 Case Study n
titled “All the colors in the World,” showing groups Similar campaigns were also done with animals—a
of teenagers and kids from different countries and wolf and a lamb with the tagline: “United Friends of
ethnic groups dressed in Benetton clothing, with the Benetton.”
company logo in the corner. Bruno Suter, Director of
Eldorado Agency that handled Benetton’s advertising Since Benetton’s clothing was sold in so many
account, commented on this multi-race theme: different markets, each one preferring different styles,
showed the products nor the logo. The knot logo was
replaced with a small green triangle with the tagline
“United Colors of Benetton.” Luciano Benetton
explained his decision to separate the products from
the advertisements:
“Using these images in this unconventional way
is an effort by Benetton to break through the
complacency that exists in our society due to the
constant flow of even the most horrendous realities
communicated through conventional media such
In 1988, the company started mixing culture and as the evening news or the morning paper. By
legends. New advertisements featured Adam and removing these images from their familiar contexts
Eve, Joan of Arc and Marilyn Monroe, Leonardo de and putting them in a new context they are more
Vinci and Julius Caesar, all captioned with the slogan: likely to be noticed and given the attention they
“United Superstars of Benetton.” deserve as the viewer becomes involved in the
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Case Study n GLOBAL CEO n November 2002
process of answering the questions: What does An angelic-looking white child embracing a black
this image mean? Why does this image appear one whose hair shaped into devil’s horns created a
with a Benetton logo? How do I feel about the lot of conaternation among Black groups in the US.
subject of the image? What can I do?”
In 1991, Toscani introduced a number of
advertisements that discussed other social issues.
The advertisements were a means to draw attention
to important social problems and thereby generate
public discussion. Throughout the early 1990s,
Benetton advertisements featured a cemetery
(signifying war deaths), many different brightly
colored condoms, a baby with an umbilical cord, a
priest and a nun kissing, etc. The advertisement
featuring the priest and nun seriously offended the
Pope of Vatican and the religious sentiments of
many. The image of the baby with an umbilical cord
invited mixed responses. In the company’s view,
Famous advertisements during the late 1980s included advertisement simply conveyed the beauty of new
a black hand and a white hand linked by a handcuff, life. More specifically the advertisement was to
a black woman breast-feeding a white baby. The convey the universal idea of love as a force from
black woman-white baby advertisement received which life itself is born and that a baby symbolizes
severe criticism because many thought that Benetton the most permanent form of love. The photo set off
was reminding the black people of the US and UK of a huge controversy throughout Europe and many
the times of slavery when black women wanted it to be banned. At the same time, however,
breast-fed white babies. However, Benetton the image was exhibited in a Flemish museum as
maintained that such photos were only symbols of part of a show celebrating the images of
brotherhood in the world and not exploitation of a motherhood.
particular race. Other advertisements signifying
brotherhood and camaraderie included a white wolf
and a black sheep nose to nose, a black child sleeping
among a pile of white teddy-bears, a little black hand
on a big white hand, a piano duo showing little white
hands being helped by big black hands, two children
(one black, the other white) facing each other sitting
on their potties, tubes of personality tests, several
young couples of miners and bakers united by the
black of the soot or coal and the white of the flour.
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Case Study n GLOBAL CEO n November 2002
discussed about life and their punishment. Benetton issues themselves. In various countries, this has
thought that if the public saw these inmates as already happened. As more and more people
“people,” then they would be less inclined to see the understand our position and the urgency of these
prisoners executed and more inclined to support issues, we hope to become the vehicle for
against death penalty. discussion and not its focus.”
The campaign resulted in widespread protests from One leading magazine summarized Benetton’s
customers as well as government bodies. The families advertisements:
of the victims and prisoners objected strongly to the “They seem to take the virtuous stand for the
campaign. The state of Missouri (US) where the betterment of humanity and thus create a sense
inmates in question were imprisoned filed a suit of power in the viewer who agrees with the safe,
against the company stating that they were mislead politically correct message, even if the message
regarding the use of the photos that were taken. is made with shocking images. By empowering
Over the years, many newspapers in many countries the viewer, the consumer, the company associates
itself with engineered
refused to print Benetton
feelings of empowerment
advertisements. In 1995,
and righteousness. Through
government authorities in Toscani’s responsibility, as the use of such images
Germany banned Benetton Benetton’s creative director, Benetton as a company has
advertisements featuring child was to document social become icon for this kind of
laborers, the human body
stamped “HIV Positive,” and
realities rather than protest in advertising which
promote sales tries to claim the ability for
a bird stuck in an oil slick. They
social change. In reality,
were banned because these
Benetton creates an
advertisements exploited
empowered viewer who will
suffering. The newborn advertisement was
buy their product through shock value,
withdrawn from the media in Italy, France and UK.
empowerment and memorability.”
The more the company’s advertisements were
banned, the more Benetton got publicity. Benetton Benetton and Oliviero Toscani
was also sued by many of its retail outlets that believed
the provocative advertisements drove away The strong force behind Benetton’s advertisements
customers. Many retailers criticized Benetton’s was Oliviero Toscani who created advertisements
strategy: the less traditional way. Toscani’s responsibility, as
Benetton’s creative director, was to document social
“We are talking about two different arenas here. realities rather than promote sales. He explained his
If Benetton wanted to underwrite some cause, role in the company:
we’d be supportive. But we’re trying to sell
products. At this point everyone should know “Nobody ever told me my job was to sell anything.
what Benetton is. But we still find a lot of people I’m responsible for the company’s
who know the name but don’t know what we sell.” communications; I’m not responsible for its
economics. Benetton has given me incredible
Luciano Benetton responded to retailers and other freedom to propose issues that should be
protestors about its questionable advertising themes: communicated. To be really contemporary, an up-
“We are aware of the controversy that some of to-date company, we must take our communication
our images have caused, but we believe that all in another direction. Not the one usually followed
worthwhile stances will have supporters and by most companies, in the apparel business, at
detractors. Our hope is that people will move from least- when there’s an obvious connection
the sterile discussion of whether or not a company between product, model and merchandizing. I’m
is entitled to illustrate its point of view in its aware that, having a relatively big budget, it would
advertising campaigns, to a discussion of the be like throwing money away if we only explained
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