Benetton’s Unusual Propaganda

For this week’s blog, we were to read a chapter from a book about Propaganda and if the imaging was used in a positive way or not. After reading about Benetton’s clothing chain’s advertisement strategy I was confused on what they were thinking. The idea that shocking and somewhat hard-to- look-at images will draw in more costumers to their products didn’t make as much sense to me as it did to them when they were drawing out the plans for this advertising campaign. The idea of using images such as two horses mating, and a man with AIDS on his deathbed would draw in the target group for their product (young adults between the ages of 18-24) seem to be a very odd way to get their attention. Though it is an image that wouldn’t leave the mind anytime soon, and thus remind the young adults of the brand name, the images really didn’t flow with the product. As a clothing company, I would use images such as a young couple holding hands with the photo focused on their jeans or their torso if I were to sell the product, but to me, these images where just a way to get some shock factor. The idea that ads like this will be seen by other people, not just the target group has to be taken, and when children to elderly people see this image, it could easily upset or offend them in some form. Companies have to realize that images are powerful and that they can be taken anyway, and should be aware of the conscientious of their actions. Even if companies think “Any publicity is good publicity” they have to take in the fact that the people and market will determine if the images are good enough to help sales; because of Benetton’s images, they lost shelf space and lost millions of dollars for their campaign. Everything has to be taken in perspective, and when using images you have to know who you are targeting, but you should also relate it to your product and not do some random image for mare shock value. This is propaganda for sure for it is nothing more but a somewhat shock and aw campaign where the people are to be stun in some way by what they see. These campaigns in the marketing world are dangerous for they can go either way and can hurt the company just like it did here for Benetton.