Case Study: The Limits of Advertising

Toscani was hired to front an advertising campaign for Benetton, a small italian clothing line. He launched the company almost overnight by creating an ad campaign to shock consumers. Towards the beginning of the campaign Toscani depicted young children wearing Benetton's clothing and smiling. The company was promoting diversity. As the campaign pressed on however, Toscani began photographing social issues. He photographed a child dying of aids, death row, a black slave owner nursing a white child, all the while not including any of Benetton's merchandise in the photographs. Are these images meant to "promote social awareness," or merely shock the public? I think shock photography like this is a cheap trick to get a reaction out of consumers. "Our advertising needs to shock - otherwise people will not remember it " says Benetton's advertising manager. I feel like Benetton using these images to shock the public solely for the purpose of people remembering their name is not good advertising.