Case Study: Benneton, Toscani, and the Limits of Advertising

As we’ve discussed in class, photography became a powerful advertising tool early in the 20^th century. Case Study: Benneton, Toscani, and the Limits of Advertising describes the ways in which advertising and photography can clash; causing widespread uproar rather than interest in a product or company. At the beginning of Toscani’s career with Benneton, his imagery helped the company to increase sales and popularity drastically, bringing it from a small Italian family company to an international corporation. While his earlier work for the company reflected the international interests of Benneton, depicting multicultural youth wearing Benneton clothing, his later pieces strayed from the typical glorification seen in advertising and rather created an unprecedented element of shock amongst viewers. The advertisements began to completely contradict the global harmony that the company supposedly promoted. 

I find it extremely interesting that Toscani’s photographs practiced exactly the opposite of what the company preached.  From the start, Benneton’s advertisements “ignored the third world realities of globalization which are characterized by the exploitation of third world workers for the benefit of increased consumption in the West and the elites of third world nations”, as did many other multinational corporations. Yet later in his career, Toscani’s photographs went so far as to depict explicit and disturbing scenes that resulted in a negative historical interpretation rather than the individual reaction he was aiming for, in his words, “trendy ambiguity”.  Over all, the case study has brought to my attention that in order for photography to be a useful tool in advertisement, there needs to be that element of glorification, or on the other hand, degradation of a subject to accomplish the overarching goal of the ad. As Toscani has shown us, attempting to incorporate severe political and social contexts within advertising is not always effective.