Benetton Ads 1980s

UCB Advertising Presentation :

The advertising philosophy of United Colors of Benetton is based on Luciano Benetton's belief that "the communication must not be controlled from outside the company, but conceived in his heart."
This hypothesis is derived from the advertising strategy of a brand that has sought for over 20 years to create "value" by capitalizing on an image.A company that focuses on value and decided to create value is no longer communicating with the consumer, but with the individual.

Actual consumption is repositioned in the general context of life. Enter the world of values, the brand frees the product from the world of commodities and manufacturing and is a social being by itself. Speaking to a person rather than a customer, the brand can identify its target on the basis not of age or income, but a shared vision of what is important from a total of common values.
Benetton Ads 1980s
From its origins as a fashion brand for young, Benetton realized that putting resources into the building and promotion of its brand was a good strategic investment. The "united" the colors of its sweaters soon became a metaphor for skin tones united young people from many different countries, for which the sweaters were designed. As the expansion of markets, Benetton became a global force in the next few years the United spreading the concept of color covering the different races to the ideas of tolerance, peace and respect for diversity.Corporate brand has evolved with technological progress. Benetton made its most incisive technical movement in the early 60's, when he developed a process for dyeing finished garments rather than non-woven fibers. With this technique, the company could, from its beginnings, react much more quickly to fashion trends in a market where responsiveness is key. The color manipulation has become a feature of the identity of Benetton and industrial culture.


  • All the colors of the world" was one of the first slogans to appear in Benetton ads, and was later changed to "United Colors of Benetton.The concept of solid colors were so strong one, for the first time in its history the company has adopted the slogan as his real logo.
  • For the first time in the history of trademarks was the slogan United Colors of Benetton brand.
  • A brand that has become the driving force behind the "United Colors" message, which formed the basis of visual advertising designed to create a growing network of "people united". These images show men and women and all skin tones emanating integration, energy and joie de vivre. It suggests a universe governed by somewhat abstract simplicity of easy relationships and feelings.

At This Point, The Process Of Creating Value For The Brand Was Carried Out In Three Phases: 


  • Cycle of difference
  • The cycle of reality
  • The cycle of freedom of expression and the right to express

Cycle Of Difference :

Benetton's long journey toward his destiny as a subverter of stereotypes began in collaboration with Oliviero Toscani and the images of the countryside 1986. Happy groups of multiracial kids were replaced by "couples" represent a completely new interpretation of the difference. In this cycle, the word "different" has become a close cousin of "controversial". Benetton learned that the hearing is the difference between the process of communication is not an easy task. Often the attempt to bring different people together can lead to conflict instead of happiness and euphoria.
Benetton Ads 1980s
Many advertisements of the period was a reflection of this process. One represented religious and political conflicts (Palestine and Israel):
Another described the religious and sexual conflict (a priest kissing a nun), and again to describe a moral conflict (the stereotypes of good and evil, symbolized by an angel and the devil):
All these conflicts were based on taboo subjects, is the impossibility of coexistence on the difference that separates rather than combined. Recognizing these differences and prohibitions, the brand appeared more involved. It took a hand, not so much to give a simple description of "objective" of the world, is committed to promote the coexistence of opposites, to break down barriers and ensure dialogue. Benetton had a plan: to integrate opposites, combined with differences of less than a flag, logo flag. At this point, "product" gradually disappeared from the ads. Traditional advertising messages made to the product is obvious to focus, so that the campaign would have a measurable impact business. Benetton has taken a different direction, suggesting that the identity of the brand had been established, the product would become one of the attributes. The company was now taking on all continents.

Paradoxically, the growing popularity and availability of tangible Benetton merchandise-people could buy goods in more than 5000 stores worldwide, resulting in the disappearance of the goods of its ads.
Benetton Ads 1980s
Cycle Of Reality :

After equality and the exaltation of differences, Benetton turned to the reality of what is common and shared by all humanity. The dialogue that Benetton had begun its "consumers" (who had always looked forward to all that men and women) have depth.In 1991, during the Gulf War, was created this image a picture of a War Cemetery:
Published in one newspaper in Italy, Il Sole 24 Ore, because all the others refused to print, the image distance themselves from previous campaigns. The style became "realistic", the introduction of the depth of field, and some "real life", broke into the world of artificial sweeteners advertising.This unique photo prompted hundreds of articles worldwide opposition. to the outbreak of the "death" as a subject of advertising, Benetton answered with a birth, the famous image of a newborn baby still attached to the umbilical cord.The image of Giusy newborn child was conceived as a celebration of life, but it was one of the most censored images in the history of Benetton ads. In the field of advertising, traditionally occupied by simulation, real-life eruption has caused a scandal.
In Italy, the protests started in Palermo, where the Town Council ordered Benetton to break down the banners. In Milan, the censorship was preventive, and comprehensive, "Piazza Duomo" was off-limits. The announcement was later condemned by the Advertising Code of Practice of the Court, the industry self-regulation by the commission, which decided that the photo "does not take into account the sensitivity of the public." Similar criticisms have been voiced in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. The subsequent fate of this image is a bit 'strange after the refusal, began to be understood and appreciated. He received the award for the Swiss "Societe Generale of Affichage" (General Poster Association) and the Policlinico St. Orsola in Bologna asked for permission to view the delivery room photos.
Benetton Ads 1980s
The same image was also showcased in the Netherlands as part of an exhibition dedicated to the iconography of motherhood for centuries in Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.
At that time changed the language of Benetton communication dramatically. With the February '92 campaign came the scandal of global proportions. These ads showed pictures of the new real, high-drama situations: a man dying of AIDS, a soldier grabs a human femur bone of a man murdered by the Mafia, a burning car, a ship being taken to assault by emigrants.Photo by David Kirby in his room at Ohio State University Hospital in May 1990 with his family at his bedside, he took Therese Frare and had been printed in black and white photo printing for Life magazine in November 1990. He had already won the World Press Photo 1991, but was using in its advertising of Benetton, which has brought to the attention of world media, and made people talk of dying of AIDS. To the extent that, in addition to winning the country's best Art Directors Club in 1991, Houston, International Center of Photography Infinity Award, and has exhibited in American museums, French, Italian, Swiss and Germans in 2003, was a photograph with the Life collection '100 Photos that changed the world. "


David's parents, Bill and his wife, Kay, attended the press conference called by Benetton in New York Public Library, and while the world's opinion of this image has been split between accusations of cynicism and of approval, and many shops had refused to print it, David's mother said: "We do not feel that we have been used by Benetton, but rather the opposite: David talking about a lot more now that he died as he when he was alive. "
Photos of the AIDS patient, the soldier and Albanian migrants were not taken for the advertising campaign, but there was real photo agency in the typical style of the reports, used to deliver the news. These photos have been portrayed the "real world" fell into the conventions of the information, and introduced a number of interesting new questions about the fate of advertising: can marketing and the enormous power of advertising budgets are used to establish dialogue with customers is focused on more than just products of a company? Where was it written that advertising could not represent the absence of conflict and pain.





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