I know this is old news,but can Benetton be allowed to keep getting away with its shock tactics strategy, or are there limits?
Just after the Unhate campaign — a global call to action to combat the “culture of hatred” by Italian fashion retailer Benetton — launched in Paris yesterday, a swift rebuke from the Vatican showed it had struck a nerve.
Benetton's digitally created imagery included a billboard showing Pope Benedict XVI kissing Mohammed Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand sheikh of al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, the most important and moderate centre for Sunni Islamic studies in the world. According to The Guardian, Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi criticised the clothing company for exploiting the pope's image as part of the Unhate campaign's doctored series of images of political and religious leaders locking lips:
"We must express the firmest protest for this absolutely unacceptable use of the image of the Holy Father, manipulated and exploited in a publicity campaign with commercial ends. This shows a grave lack of respect for the pope, an offence to the feelings of believers, a clear demonstration of how publicity can violate the basic rules of respect for people by attracting attention with provocation."
Benetton pulled the unholy papal smooch ad (having separately pulled another image showing now-resigned Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi kissing Angela Merkel). The brand responded to the papal rebuke by saying it was sorry the picture "had so hurt the sensibilities of the faithful." The brand surprised some observers by capitulating — which it may not have done back in the days when its advertising delighted in being an in-your-face "subverter of stereotypes."
The Vatican, meanwhile, is reportedly still planning to sue Benetton to make sure the controversial image takes a permanent vow of silence.
The outcry, of course, only helps publicize Benetton's campaign and prove its button-pushing point. Going back to its roots, Benetton is eager to upend preconceptions with Unhate, which includes not only advertising and renegade hoisting of the images in public spots, but a new foundation and social Kiss Wall for the public to upload their liplocks.
The central theme — the kiss as a symbol of love and unity — mashes religious and political world leaders such as Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas smooching with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and US president Barack Obama pecking Chinese leader Hu Jintao, shown below in New York and Paris.
"While global love is still a utopia, albeit a worthy one, the invitation 'not to hate', to combat the 'culture of hatred', is an ambitious but realistic objective," says Benetton in a press release. "At this moment in history, so full of major upheavals and equally large hopes, we have decided, through this campaign, to give widespread visibility to an ideal notion of tolerance and invite the citizens of every country to reflect on how hatred arises particularly from fear of 'the other’ and of what is unfamiliar to us.”
The Benetton Group, present in 120 countries worldwide, produces over 150 million garments annually through 6,000 stores with three brands, United Colors of Benetton, Sisley and Playlife. But equally integral to the company ethos is a consistent message of tolerance and cultural equality epitomized by its advertising and COLORS, its quarterly magazine started in 1991 under the direction of the late Tibor Kalman.
The New York-based Kalman, who ran M&Co. agency, commissioned provocative images such as Queen Elizabeth as an African, below, by photographer Oliviero Toscani for the brand's COLORS magazine. COLORS, on sale in 40 countries with editions published in four languages and available online, has been a touchstone of candor and controversy in the global publishing world. In the spring of 1993, the 4th issue addressed the topic of race by running full-page photos of Queen Elizabeth’s face doctored to look like a black woman, Pope John Paul II as Asian, and filmmaker Spike Lee as a white man.
COLORS was the first media outlet, in early 1994, to cover AIDS (Issue 7), causing an international hue and cry with a doctored photo of former President Ronald Reagan as an emaciated AIDS patient covered with Kaposi's Sarcoma lesions, which were reproduced in print and outdoor ads.
Moreover, the brand's multicultural advertising campaigns championed diversity, multiracial and untraditional models sporting its clothes, embodying its "United Colors of Benetton" positioning.
And so we fast forward to Unhate, now hitting walls and streets in Paris, London, New York, Tel Aviv and Milan, a campaign that “fits perfectly with the values and history of Benetton, which chooses social issues and actively promotes humanitarian causes that could not otherwise have been communicated on a global scale, and in doing so has given a sense and a value to its brand, building a lasting dialogue with the people of the world,” as Alessandro Benetton, Executive Deputy Chairman of Benetton Group, puts it.
“Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased,” stated the Sutta Pitaka of Buddha, summing up the concept of tolerance at the core of the initiative. Despite the kowtowing to Rome, Benetton has produced a vibrant and stirring campaign, restoring not only buzz (among a new generation) but a return to the core values the brand stands for — further proof that a picture is still worth a thousand words (tweets, updates and texts) while a kiss can be more than just a kiss. Whether Unhate boosts sales and brings more idealistic youths back to the brand, however, remains to be seen.
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