Colors
Tibor KalmanCritics argue that Benetton’s highly visible,
captionless double-truck ads and billboards
featuring, among other images, a dying AIDS
patient, war-weary refugees, and an Angolan
rebel soldier nonchalantly holding a human
bone, are sensationalist ploys to manipulate
public perception. And for what? To sell
sweaters? Yet Benetton claims that its motive
in publishing such imagery is not just to
garner the most publicity for the least
possible PR dollar (although this certainly has
been the effect), but to use their position as a
successful business to communicate strong, if
unpopular, messages about society and the
world.
Productless advertisements are not
new. During World War II, American
corporations showed support for the war
effort through institutional advertising that
wed patriotism to corporate identity. Since the 1960 s, Mobil Oil has
propagated corporate citizenship through editorial ads on op-ed pages. In
the 1980 s Esprit, Kenneth Cole, and Ben and Jerry’s devoted advertising
and packaging space to promote social and environmental causes. But in
the 1990 s Benetton went a step further with a compelling campaign created
by advertising director Olivero Toscani that attached the Benetton logo to a
series of sensitive issues. What began as “The United Colors of Benetton,”
a product-based series of ads showing multicultural kids and promoting
ethnic and racial harmony, evolved into captionless double-truck
journalistic photographs of the kind mentioned above, which ultimately
begot Benetton’s own magazine,Colors.
Colorsis not a fashion or style magazine in the “downtown,”
experimental, post-punk tradition; nor is it an institutional or corporate
house organ. Rather its editorial focus is dedicated to presenting a harshly
realistic, though often humorous, world view. Tibor Kalman ( 1949 – 1999 ),
editor-in-chief of Colors from 1990 to 1995 , characterized the magazine as a
cross between National Geographic,Life, and The Face.144