Benetton's campaign king
TO his fans, he is the creator of a new kind of advertising genre. Critics accuse him of exploiting serious social issues for the sake of selling clothes. Whichever view you take, Oliviero Toscani's unorthodox advertising campaign for Benetton is inarguably one of the most talked about in history.
In 1984, Benetton launched a new campaign called 'All The Colours Of The World' which featured young people of different races and colours in a light-hearted depiction of youth and racial harmony.
Sounds harmless enough, but even then, some white South African publications objected to depictions of black and white children holding hands, while a photograph of a black woman's breast feeding a white infant ignited passions.
By 1990, the slogan 'United Colours of Benetton' was adopted. That year also marked a shift in the campaign with Benetton products completely disappearing from the now famous ads. They were replaced by increasingly controversial images and themes concerning social hot potatoes with only the familiar green Benetton logo appearing at the bottom of the page to remind us that this was, in fact, an ad for a retail chain.
A dying AIDS patient, a war cemetery and a multi-coloured condom rainbow all became images associated with Benetton and were selected for their social importance, rather than for slick aesthetics. But is it art? Despite the criticisms of merely going for shock value to gain publicity, Toscani remains defiant.
No one can question his sincere interest in civic responsibility, and if his controversial ads have offended and hurt people, they have also done some social good. The last campaign featuring Benetton chairman Luciano Benetton completely naked, save for the caption 'I Want My Clothes Back' resulted in an uproar which gave a huge kick to Benetton's clothing redistribution project and eventually led to 460,000 kilograms of clothing being donated for the cause.
The Benettons, not content to rest on their social laurels, have taken their message one step further. Financed through their own advertising budget the company has opened a young people's workshop and school called 'Fabrica' in Treviso, Italy.