United colours of Benetton

Over the years, advertising has become the single largest source of visual imagery in our society. No matter where we look, we see advertisements trying to sell us everything from food to cars. We often see images of beautiful people enticing us to spend our money on products we think we need, hoping that by purchasing the product we too will reap the benefits of owning it. Not long ago however, an Italian clothing designer named Luciano Benetton changed the face of advertising forever by employing Oliviero Toscani as chief of advertising at Benetton. Instead of showing Benetton’s products in its advertisements, they have chosen to show images related to important world issues in an apparent attempt to raise awareness. In this essay, I shall discuss the social and cultural implications of Benetton’s advertisements to discover why they have become so criticised and whether or not they are beneficial to society today.

It was in 1989 that Benetton became the first company to eliminate pictures of its products from its advertisements. In their place, Benetton uses powerful images of AIDS victims, racism, war and now even death row inmates. In the same year, th

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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2158
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)