Benetton/Barnardos Essay

I found an essay pdf online Danielle Limpinnian who has talked about the Benetton campaigns in an undergraduate level essay. I gave this a read as it was slightly relevant to my topic, however I was more interested in the bibliography of this essay to see whether I had missed any crucial texts or writers who are relevant to my topic. I did pick out some points and questions that are worth thinking about though.

The question the essay is answering is...
'Using examples from 'infamous' campaigns to illustrate your argument, critically evaluate the main aims and purposes of so called controversial advertisements. In your answer, you should pay particular attention to issues of audience reception.'

In the introduction she talks about how controversial advertising campaigns are becoming more popular. They are using shock tactics to win our attention by focusing on taboo subjects and trying to get across a sense of social awareness. She speaks about the 'media frenzy' that this creates which is basically a way of getting more free publicity for the brand. The essay is going to be focussed on the adverts of Barbados and Benetton and try to find out whether the way that they advertise is 'ethically sound.' Clearly this does have a link to my topic, although I am not using Barnardos as an example because this is actually a charity and this is not what I want to focus on. 

The chapter about Barnardos used some quotes from a book by Henry A Giroux called Disturbing Pleasures (1994) which I am starting to think could be relevant to my research. A specific quote she used was 'aestheticization of politics' (p18) which is along the right lines of the concepts I am researching. 

The chapter about Benetton speaks about the 'controversial mix of commerciality and social issues'. She states that it is questionable that people's attitudes towards the social issues change because of the ads, but their attitudes towards the brand will most likely change for the better. They feel like by being a customer of this brand they are contributing to something positive. 

Lorella Pagnucco Salvemini was a name that was referenced in this chapter and I realised I have a book from the library written by this name. The book is 'The Benetton Campaigns - United Colors' and I had got this out to explore the images inside, although maybe there is more relevant information to be found in the text too.

Benetton's AIDS campaign is talked about, highlighting this as one of the campaigns that Bentton did actually follow up with actions. Benetton gave away free condoms in all of its stores in an attempt to combat the spreading of HIV. This seems like an admirable act, but in relation to the previous mention of a 'media frenzy', linking themselves to a current issue being widely spoken about in the media is a clever way to achieve free publicity for the brand. 

It is proposed in this chapter that as soon as a logo is added, the social awareness/change campaigns immediately become a 'marketing tool'. It is also mentioned that no money was donated to charity which a lot of people presumed was happening, even though Benetton had not stated that it would. 

In the conclusion, she describes Benetton's actions as 'shrewd' and 'brave' which has given them a 'respectable and contemporary brand image'. Interestingly, she challenges whether the results would be the same today as society is less easy to shock with images like these whereas at the time they were publicised, people hadn't seen this kind of imagery before. Her conclusion is that 'companies need to show that they are responsible enough to make their own moral image to some extent a reality' which basically says that the campaign alone is not enough. There needs to be some real action or exchange to reinforce that they actually care. 

I don't entirely agree with the contents of this essay but it does contain some arguments to consider. I am not planning on using this as a source as it is only an undergraduate essay and therefore at the same level as what I am writing. I am more interested in the theorists used within this essay so, as a result of reading it I am going to read Salvemini's text in the 'The Benetton Campaigns United Colors' and 'Distrurbing Pleasures' by Giroux.

Other sources to consider include...

• Marsh, Stephanie, (Friday January 2^nd, 2004) ‘Are we becoming immune to shock tactics?’ The Times
• Falk, Pasi (1997) ‘The Benetton-Toscani Effect: Testing the limits of conventional advertising’ in: Nava, Mica et al. (Eds) (1997): Buy This Book – Studies in Advertising and Consumption.  London: Routledge pp.64-83.