Benetton A Brief Critique

For over a decade Benetton has sought to associate their corporate identity to a commitment to racial and social harmony, by basing their advertising on controversial images, depicting images that many considered shocking, possibly distasteful and at best trying of social and political norms. . Benetton has taken this strategy to an extreme, addressing norms and ideas, attitudes to reality as well as political and religious icons. In doing so Benetton has generated a high level of controversy and rhetoric and stimulated the global, governmental, industrial and advertising communities to stand up and be extremely vocal in criticism of their techniques.

The campaign is meant to be and from wide response, was extremely shocking. But is it distasteful? Is it politically incorrect, does it aggressively and negatively take advantage of people and situations, more importantly does it negatively impact the corporate image Benetton is attempting to project and is it an effective source of promotion?

Benetton’s advertising campaign which in other words could be considered more of a publicity campaign has generated a high level of controversy since its inception in the early 90’s. From priests kissing nuns, to posters of newborn babies still adorned with afterbirth to dead Aids patients and soldiers. Benetton has done its best to publish images that would cause all that saw them to react in some way. However it is the nature of those reactions that are in question. For example showing the newborn in the USA got the following reaction, “Birth is still an extremely private and personal subject for AmericansвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ Mary Anne Sommers, publisher of Child, implying this ad was an attack on the nature of birth that it is and should remain for Americans a private affair between parents and their children and not something that should be graphically depicted on street corners and in mainstay magazines.

Globally many similar reactions have been noted, in Italy the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore, was equally aggressive when commenting on an ad showing blood soaked clothes of a soldier who had been killed in Bosnia, in saying that the poster was “a horrendous poster that has managed to make a mockery even of death” inferring that Benetton’s campaigns have managed to affect and negatively address every aspect of life however sac resent and private it should be.

However the most effectual example of a negative outcome for Benetton must have been when both Sears and Roebuck stores banned sales from Benetton USA in response to the year 2000 ad campaign that was run, depicting prisoners on Death Row.

Looking at the previously mentioned anecdotal responses to Benetton’s campaign efforts, amongst others, it is obvious that the initial reactions to the campaigns have been highly negative, socio political, religious and even demographic norms were addressed through the campaigns and the staunch protectors and keepers of those norms did nothing unexpected in creating outcry, showing levels of disgust and attempting to degrade the corporation’s efforts. Why however did Benetton get such a reaction? Artists for centuries, writers, painters and newsmakers have been constantly publishing and depicting images of this nature. After all they are only images of people places and events that are happening all over the world. May be it was due to the fact that was a clothing brand that was doing this, a non standard player in media and entertainment, more probably it was the perceived exploitation of suffering, racial slurs, and shocking images in the pursuit of creating awareness for the brand, hopefully to enhance sales and further infer higher levels of profit that created such outcry. So has this outcry that occurred from, socio and political leaders and the like, denouncing Benetton as well as the more direct issue with even retail outlets stopping sales, outweighed the high levels of publicity and corporate awareness Benetton has achieved? Could Benetton do something different, should they tone down the extreme nature of their campaign, or have they succeeded or are succeeding in achieving what they were looking for.

Three future courses are obvious now for Benetton. Firstly, dropping the whole style of the campaign. Secondly, adjusting the campaign to become more socially acceptable or finally staying the course and remaining as controversial as they are presently. We will also assume that Benetton does use other promotional activities within their marketing mix. That Benetton does take part in activities that make customers aware and knowledgeable of their products, also that they actively position and target their products as well. In which case we may hold those strategies constant and focus on discussing the three above comparisons within the realms of publicity and corporate identity.

The first alternative; changing the whole style of their campaign, Benetton may benefit from stopping all the negative press they are getting, maybe reconnecting with the middle of the road and conservative consumers that could have been alienated by their previous techniques and attracting altogether another set of consumers to their products. However in doing so they could be considered weak. This approach could also be considered tantamount to admitting guilt in the face of defeat, agreeing with their critics that the campaigns were exploiting human suffering and taking advantage of social and political attitudes, this could cause a snowball effect in losing respect and credibility within any following they had created, further more giving strength to the forces against them. They could also lose out from the high level of publicity and not benefit from what people say that any publicity is good publicity.

The second scenario of toning down the extreme nature of the advertising could again decrease the amount of negative press and attract a broader group of customers and increase appeal. Possibly improving the corporate image and coming more inline in with what is generally acceptable, they will alienate less potential customers and in turn attract more consumers to the brand while creating a broader appeal. However dilution may also have a negative effect, affecting those who may have considered that Benetton were making strong