Benetton- Billboard Advertising

Index

1 Benetton overview 1

2 Billboard Advertising 3

3 Other Benetton Campaigns 4

4 UNHATE Campaign 9

4.1 UNHATE Foundation 9

4.2 UNHATE CAMPAIGN 10

4.3 Objectives and target group of the campaign 11

4.4 Media planning 13

5 Evaluation 14

Bibliography 15

1 Benetton overview

The Benetton Company was founded in 1965 by Luciano Benetton and his brothers in Italy. Their goal was to improve the use of colours because they noticed that the winter collection in that year and the years before were kind of miserable. Clothes in the fifties and sixties were expensive and very traditional especially for young people.

That is very important to understand the variety of colors that makes Benetton different today. In 1969 they started to sell their products outside of Italy for the first time namely in Paris, France (Benetton Group S.p.A., 2011a).

Nowadays, they have more products for home, cosmetics, accessories and an own magazine called ‘Colors’. Benetton is present in 120 countries all over the world with 6,500 selling points and 8,000 employees. Since the mid 1980’s their headquarters are located in Villa Minelli in Ponzano which is about 30 km from Venice. It has the Italian cloth prestige like design, quality and style.

The total turnover rises above 2 billion euro a year. The image below gives an overview on the net revenues and net incomes during the last few years.

Source: Benetton Group S.p.A., 2012.

The brand has four different clothing brands: United Colors of Benetton offering casual clothes for everyday life; Undercolors of Benetton being a collection of underwear, nightwear and beachwear; Sisley focusing on fashion and Playlife proposing collections for younger people (Benetton Group S.p.A., 2011b).

In the following image we can see how their sales are divided between the brands and the different regions of the world:

Source: Benetton Group S.p.A., 2012.

Benetton has a big strength in their wide spread over the whole world. While e.g. H&M as another clothing brand is just represented in roughly 30 countries Benetton is present in 120 different countries. More strengths lie in their high interest in innovation and in their colorful high quality clothes. Their long presence in the market gives them a solid basis to work on.

But Benetton also has to fight with a lot of weaknesses. First of all, the controversial advertising which distinguishes Benetton from other apparel manufacturers may discourage some people to buy their clothes. In addition the marketing communications is not overall consistent. On the one hand their institutional campaigns are known for its controversial themes but on the other hand the marketing campaigns of their different clothing brands are similar to these of any other fashion company. Furthermore it is difficult for Benetton as it is for any international company to have an efficient management due to the cultural differences they encounter being active in 120 countries around the world. Except from the United States they already have stores in most of the countries which are good markets for their fashion and other products so their possibility to expand further is low.

A big opportunity lies in the fact that in some countries their market share is still low which makes it possible for Benetton to improve on this. The reason for this could be that the prices e.g. in Europe are rather expensive for their clothing collections and also that the collection do not show much variation regarding the current fashion but are instead held more classical.

A huge threat lies in the growing amount of competitors they have to face. The image below shows the main competitors of Benetton in Spain which stands here as a representative of Europe.

Source: IEDGE - The European Business School, 2011.

Another huge threat is that their sales are decreasing and they are losing a lot of customers and money.

2 Billboard Advertising

A billboard is a large structure of outdoor advertising, comprising a support plane on which are set ads. Billboards present large advertisements to pedestrians and drivers and are the most visible in the market.

Bulletins are the largest standard-sized billboards. Almost all are in roads or main roads, which have high density of consumer exposure (mostly to vehicular traffic). They allow greater visibility and can be personalized.

Posters are another common form of billboards and are mostly found in industrial and commercial areas. They are smaller than bulletins and are viewed by residents and passenger traffic, with some pedestrian exposure.

Traditional billboards consist of flat surfaces which are placed on different sheets so this combination forms a picture. Advertising that are placed on the sides of the playing fields or sports centre stadiums are also called billboards advertising (Barker, N., Valos, M. and Schimp, T., 2012, p.203- 206).

The three most important types of billboards are digital, mobile and inflatable billboards.

Digital billboards: It is a billboard which message is created from computer programs. They can be designed to display moving text, different messages of the same company or even messages from different companies for a defined time throughout the day. Given the versatility and growing profitability, this method is called to become the standard of the future (Billboard Connection, 2013).

Mobile billboards: It is a billboard placed on a vehicle (truck or trailer) showing the message through a lot of streets with the sole purpose of displaying advertising.

Inflatable billboards: It is an inflatable object that displays an advertisement. It is an atypical form of fence that is often placed in the vicinity of stadiums when you are having a party.

3 Other Benetton Campaigns

Benetton became worldwide known in the nineties with the production of some controversial campaigns. The criticism that has arisen from that style of advertising is that they are accused of creating offensive messages to sell their products. But that criticism has contributed directly to their increased popularity.

This provocative advertising style from Benetton has its origin in 1985 with the advertising campaigns titled ‘United Colors of Benetton’ by the photographer Oliviero Toscani who included images that were apparently not related at all with the clothes being sold by the company but with social problems such as AIDS or death sentence. The only direct reference to the company in these campaigns is the logo of Benetton. Benetton associated with the slogan United Colors of Benetton has tried to give a sense of social criticism to its corporate image.

At first their campaigns tried to express the coexistence between people of different races and nationalities but soon they learned that their advertisements could contain further significant messages.

The first campaigns for Benetton were made by Oliviero Toscani. They illustrate the ‘United Colors’ and want to fight against racism. Two of the campaigns were called ‘Black and White’ (1989-1991) and ‘Colors of the World’ (1990-1996).

Two out of the many pictures that were used for these two campaigns have caused a strong reaction of the black community in the United States of America: the 'Black woman breastfeeding white baby' and ‘White and Black man handcuffed together’.

The first one is the most awarded advertising in Benetton's campaign history and probably also the most remembered one.

The latest Benetton campaign launched in 2012 is called ‘Unemployee of the Year’ and aims to support young people who are not employed although highly educated.

Through this initiative the UNHATE Foundation aims to help young people to 'become agents of change against indifference and stigma' (Bencom S.R.L., 2013a). An online contest was organized inviting the young non-employed between the ages of 18 and 30 to present creative projects with a social impact. The best projects were selected by online vote and received the support of the UNHATE Foundation.

The following table gives an overview of controversial communication campaigns by Benetton.

Campaign Main Message Billboard

United Colors of Benetton

(1985) ● first ‘different’ picture from Benetton

● multiracial ‘couples’ posing together

(Historydesignlove, 2011)

Black and White (1989-1991) ● fight against racism

● caused a strong reaction in the black community in the USA

Colors of the World (1990-1996) ● fight against racism

Against War

(1992) ● fight against war

● Picture of the cemetery is one of the favourites of Toscani who describes it: “It's a picture full of symbolism: green and white, representing peace. And the endless rows of crosses of an American military cemetery, to remind people that we were at war, but war was `invisible' and very different from those we were accustomed.”

Against AIDS

(1992) ● turning point in the perception of AIDS

● from considering the disease as something that only homosexuals and drug addicts suffer to a merciless tragedy

● most important picture was a man dying of AIDS

We On Death Row

(2000) ● last campaign by Oliviero Toscani for Benetton

● shows prisoners who have been sentenced to death

(Braun, J. 2001)

● ‘I knew that this campaign would raise blisters and somehow sensed that would be the last. Could have been a banner year not

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