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All the colors of the world was one of the first slogans to appear in Benetton ads, and
was later altered to United Colors of Benetton. The concept of united colors was such a
strong one that for the first time in its history, the company adopted the slogan as its
actual logo.
For the first time in the history of commercial trademarks, the slogan United Colors of
Benetton became a trademark.
A trademark that became the driving force behind the United Colors message, which
formed the basis of the advertising visuals designed to create a growing network of
United People. These images showed youth of both sexes and every skin tone who
exuded integration, energy and joie de vivre. They suggested a somewhat abstract
universe ruled by the easy straightforwardness of relationships and feelings.
At this point, the process of building value for the brand took place in three separate
phases:
The cycle of difference
The cycle of reality
The cycle of free speech and the right to express it
THE CYCLE OF DIFFERENCE
Benettons long journey toward its destiny as a subverter of stereotypes began with its
cooperation with Oliviero Toscani and the images of the 1986 campaign. Happy groups of
multiracial kids were replaced by couples representing an all-new interpretation of
difference. In this cycle, the word different became a close cousin of controversial.
Benetton learned that dealing with the issue of difference within the process of
advertising is not an easy task. Often, an attempt to bring different individuals together
can lead to conflict instead of happiness and euphoria.
Many ads from the period were an expression of this process. One represented religious
and political conflict (the Palestinian and the Israeli):
Another depicted religious and sexual conflict (a priest kissing a nun), and yet another
portrayed moral conflict (the stereotypes of good and evil, symbolized by an angel and
the devil):
At this point, the language of Benetton communication changed radically. With the
February 92 campaign came the scandal of planetary proportions. These ads showed
news photos of real, high-drama situations: a man dying of AIDS, a soldier gripping a
human thigh bone, a man assassinated by the Mafia, a car on fire, a ship being stormed
by emigrants.
The photo of David Kirby in his room in the Ohio State University Hospital in May 1990,
with his family at his bedside, was taken by Therese Frare and had already been printed
as a black and white press photo in Life magazine in November 1990. It had already won
the 1991 World Press Photo Award, but it was Benettons use of it in its advertising that
brought it to the attention of the world media and made people talk about dying of AIDS.
To the extent that, as well as winning the European Art Director Club award for the best
1991 campaign, the Houston International Center of Photographys Infinity Award and
being exhibited in American, French, Italian, Swiss and German museums, in 2003 the
photo was included in the Life magazine collection 100 Photos that changed the world.
Davids parents, Bill and his wife Kay, took part in the press conference called by
Benetton in the New York Public Library and while the worlds opinion of this image
remained split between accusations of cynicism and approval, and many magazines had
already refused to print it, Davids mother said: We dont feel weve been used by
Benetton, but rather the reverse: David is speaking much louder now that hes dead, than
he did when he was alive.
The photos of the AIDS patient, the soldier and the Albanian emigrants were not taken for
the ad campaign but were actual agency photos, in typical reportage style, used for
conveying the news. These were photos that portrayed the real world, fell within the
conventions of information, and introduced a new and intriguing question about the fate
of advertising: can marketing and the enormous power of advertising budgets be used to
establish a dialogue with consumers that focuses on something other than a companys
products? Where was it written that advertising could only portray the absence of conflict
and pain?
THE CYCLE OF FREE SPEECH AND THE RIGHT TO EXPRESS IT
The reaction to these real-life photos was sometimes violent. Many publications in several
countries refused to print the campaign. By eliminating the product from its ads, violating
the taboo of disagreeable themes, associating its name with the representation of conflict
and pain and, above all, abandoning the false, comfortable world of advertising
stereotypes, Benetton cracked the foundation that held up the culture, language and
specificity of the classic advertising message. Many complaints pointed to the shock
value of the Benetton ads. But that argument did not hold water. The media have long
inured us to all sorts of images: murders, natural catastrophes, genocide. The list of
horrors and suffering that have been filtered through the media is, unfortunately,
endless. In Benettons case, then, what bothered people could not be the visuals in
themselves but the fact that they were being used as advertising by a corporation. Other
critics tolerated and even applauded Benettons effort to raise public awareness about
AIDS, war, racism, and so forth. But they found it wholly unacceptable that such an effort
was also a source of income, a component of a profit-making venture. The profits, they
said, turned protest into speculation, public message into cynicism. Nor did this argument
hold up. In Western societies there are institutions and professions that are geared
toward the public welfare (hospitals, doctors, police, firefighters, non-governmental
organizations and government agencies), but that also earn money or make profits. For
some reason, the practice is suddenly seen as disgraceful when it is a fashion label trying
to establish a publicly useful debate, as on the topic of AIDS prevention. Here lies the
essence of the scandal. Benetton was accused not of having exercised free speech, but of
not being in a legitimate position to do so. As long as the company stuck to images from
its possible world, there were no complaints at all. What upset people is that Benetton
confused the possible world with the real one, on the assumption that it had the same
right to talk about a world it had not created.
However, the subsequent legitimization of the brand through the collaboration with
numerous internationally renown associations overcame this final objection.
In 1993, with the cooperation of the Swiss Caritas organization and the Red Cross
International Federation in Geneva, Benetton launched its Clothing Redistribution
Project, the first worldwide operation aimed at the redistribution of clothing to needy
people. The star of the ad was Luciano Benetton himself, significantly nude, covered
only by the headline Give me my clothes back, used as a teaser, followed by Empty
your wardrobes. The true success of the campaign was however the 460,000 kg of used
clothing collected by the 44 associations which, working with Caritas and the Red Cross,
made it possible to achieve far-reaching redistribution throughout the world (the
associations included the Buddhist Relief Old Clothes Help in Taiwan, the Global Jewish
Assistance and Relief Network in Hong Kong, the Japan Relief Clothing Center in Tokyo,
Gifts in Kind in the United States and Canada, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in
Arab Countries and Hogar de Cristo in Latin America).
For the sixth World AIDS Day, on December 1st 1993, an enormous pink
condom, 22 meters high and 3.5 meters wide, was placed on the obelisk
in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. This time, the stunt was endorsed
by ACT UP, one of the most radical associations involved in information
about and the fight against AIDS.
All the news programs on the main international television networks
and, obviously, all the daily and magazine press featured the image that
has become a symbol of the fight against AIDS.
Through its alliance with non-profit associations, institutions, and large international
organisms, Benetton proved that a different use of advertising was indeed possible.
This different approach to communication, seen as the creation of value, has also
expressed itself in the production of catalogues and fashion collections:
The campaign highlighted the problem of hunger, which is still the greatest humanitarian
emergency around the world even though it has, to all intents and purposes, been
forgotten by the media and the general public. The aim was to show how food can be a
catalyst for social change, a major engine for peace and development that can radically
change an individuals future prospects of life.
2004, James & Other Apes: a Benetton communication campaign, a book and an
exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, with the support of the Jane Goodall
Institute, founded by the renowned primatologist who is a committed defender of the
environment and a UN Messenger of Peace.
Through this initiative, Benetton continued its exploration of diversity as a wealth of our
world, extending it from the variety of human races to embrace the living beings that are
our closest cousins.
The portraits of these great apes make us ponder the fundamental questions of mankind,
reflected in the enigmatic gaze of races so close to us on the evolutionary ladder.
The heart of the company, from which communication is now born, is Fabrica, a true
workshop for research, which is open to youngsters under 25 from all over the world.
Fabricas challenge is that of innovation and internationality: a way of combining culture
and industry, through experimentation with new languages: in design, in graphics, on the
web, in videos and the cinema, in music, in publishing and in photography. In this way,
the Group pursues its strategy of creating value and contributes towards the uniqueness
of a brand that has never stopped believing in research and experimentation.
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