United Colors of Benetton
07/2016-4520
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the assistance of Francesca Gee. It is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either
effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation.
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It was October 1995. Luciano Benetton, chairman of
Benetton Group S.p.A. prepared to address yet
another audience of business leaders. This tall,
smiling yet reserved man with very blue eyes and
longish hair was the guest speaker at a dinner held by
the Italian Chamber of Commerce for France in Paris.
Over the past 40 years, Benetton had become famous
for its technological advances and novel approach to
retailing. By 1995, it had become one of the world’s
best-known brands, with 8000 shops world-wide, and
a successful winning Formula One racing team (key
financial data can be found in Exhibit 1). For most
people, however, Benetton was synonymous with its
communication strategy - one of the world’s most
visible and controversial, almost always provoking
reactions of outrage or praise and, quite often, both.
Rather than advertising its products, Benetton used
its communications budget to provoke debate on
broad social issues such as racism, AIDS, war and
poverty. A number of observers had criticised its ‘use
of social problems to sell knitwear’. Luciano knew
that he would have to explain one more time why he
spent Benetton’s L115 billion’ 1 communication
budget on ‘penetrating the barriers of apathy’, and
that, inevitably, some of his audience would remain
unconvinced.
The Formative Years
Luciano Benetton was born in 1935 in Ponzano, a
village in a depressed rural area near the northern
Italian cities of Treviso and Venice. Like millions of
Italians of his class and generation, his father, Leone,
left Italy. In 1937 he emigrated to Ethiopia, then an
Italian colony, leaving behind his wife Rosa,
Luciano, and three smaller children: Giuliana,
Gilberto and Carlo. In Ethiopia, Leone was robbed of
the small business he had managed to build and
returned home poorer than when he had left. After his
death in 1945, from malaria contracted in Ethiopia,
the family eked out a living by doing odd jobs and
selling, one by one, the small plots of land they
owned.
Luciano’s sister, Giuliana, joined a knitwear
workshop when she was eleven years old. Luciano
worked before and after school, selling soap door-todoor and carrying 30 kilos of newspapers to sell at
Treviso train station before dawn, At 14, Luciano left
school to work in a clothing store in Treviso, where
he learned the rudiments of retailing:
‘The Dellasiega shop was typical of Italy in those
times. A long counter separated the sales assistant
from the client and the goods were usually hidden
away except for a few models in the shop window or
on a hanger. The customer needed to have at least a
vague idea of what she was looking for, and describe
it to the sales assistant … Clothes were sold like
medicine - by prescription only.’ 2
In provincial post-war Italy, clothes were still very
much dictated by a person’s occupation and social
class. Traditional social structures were, however,
beginning to break down, following the end of the
war and the downfall of Mussolini. But despite a
growing interest in leisure and sports, casual clothes
were not available nor were there specific clothes
for young people, who often wore hand-me-downs
from their parents. During his long days at
Dellasiega’s shop, Luciano became convinced that
there was a market for a youthful, casual range of
clothing. In 1955 he and Giuliana set up their own
workshop. He was 20 years old, she was eighteen.
To buy a knitting machine, Luciano sold his
concertina, while his brother Gilberto sacrificed his
bicycle. Working in the evenings, Giuliana produced
a collection of 20 knitted sweaters, helped by
Gilberto, aged 14, and Carlo, aged 12. Rosa
assembled and ironed the jumpers, and Luciano
spent his evenings cycling from door-to-door to sell
them under the trademark Trés Jolie Luciano
recalled:
‘Our first collection featured very simple designs:
high-neck, turtle-neck, V-neck, all in combed wool,
English-style ... but ... we used pale blue, green or
yellow wool, colours that nobody wore. We were the
first to use them, and we realised that people were
starved of colour, as if it had been rationed during
the war.’
Six months later, Giuliana left her day-time job to
concentrate on their family business. The following
year she bought a second knitting machine and hired
two girls aged eleven and twelve. In 1957 Luciano
left Dellasiega’s to devote himself full-time to Trés
Jolie. Gilberto joined in 1963 to look after the firm’s
finances. Luciano, aware that Italy lagged behind its
competitors in terms of quality, visited knitwear
plants in England and Scotland, and adapted some of
their processes to improve his own products. The real
breakthrough came when Luciano and Ado Montana,
2
1
On 16 October 1995, US$ 1 = L1602.10.
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Quotes not otherwise attributed in this section and the next
are from: Luciano Benetton and Andrea Lee, Io e i miei
frateili, Sperling e Kupfer Editori, 1990 (translated by the
authors).
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an impoverished dye specialist from Trieste,
discovered a way to dye fully-assembled sweaters.
Hitherto, knitwear had been produced using predyed yarn as it was generally believed that the high
temperatures necessary to dye wool would cause
holes or severe shrinkage in the assembled
garment. The new process enabled the Benettons to
respond quickly to changes in fashion and customer
demand.
the knitwear with a logo featuring Benetton in white
characters on a dark green background, and a
stylised knot of yarn. As sales continued to grow,
Luciano decided to expand into each new city by
opening two or three shops rather than just one:
‘It made more sense to compete with ourselves
than with others. So we asked Scarpa to design
several store interiors to appeal to different
clients and varying local tastes. The Mercerìa
design was classic in feel, oriented to the mothers
of our My Market customers. Tomato was all
glossy, chrome and ultra-modern. Fantomax had
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the feel of Art Nouveau and Swinging London.’
The Years of Growth
Throughout the 1960s Italy experienced an
unprecedented economic boom, and the Benettons
found themselves unable to keep up with demand.
They obtained a bank loan to build a factory in
Ponzano Veneto. The avant-garde plant, with
luxuries such as landscaped grounds and air
conditioning, resembled a spaceship set down in
the fields near Ponzano, and was designed by Tobia
and Afra Scarpa, a husband-and-wife team of
inexperienced architecture students. As the firm
continued to grow, the plant soon proved to be too
small, even before it was finished.
In 1964 Luciano was approached by Piero
Marchiorello, a penniless but enthusiastic 25-yearold from the small town of Belluno. Marchiorello
wanted to open a shop that would sell only Trés
Jolie jumpers. At the time, the concept of a onebrand, one-product shop was unheard of in Italy.
The small shop, called My Market, was
inauspiciously located in a cul-de-sac in Belluno,
which Luciano described as ‘the worst site I had
ever seen’. Marchiorello was more up-beat: ‘Look
on the bright side - if it works here, it can work
anywhere!’ The name My Market was chosen to
evoke the swinging English fashion scene of the
time, with open-air ‘Carnaby Street’-type
associations. The shop was an immediate success.
As Marchiorello explained to Luciano: ‘when
clients enter, they stand frozen, as if they were
drinking in the colours.’
The second My Market store opened in 1965 in
Cortina d’Ampezzo, a trendy skiing resort and had
no counter - a decision seen by Afra Scarpa as
symbolising the removal of social barriers. ‘Instead,
there was a small table for the cash register, ... all
the [decorative] colour came from the clothes.’
Realising that the name Benetton sounded ‘English
to the English, French to the French, and so on for
Italians, Germans, Americans,’ and was easy to
pronounce in all languages, it was decided to label
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Within four years, Benetton had 500 stores across
Italy. In 1969 Benetton opened its first store abroad,
in Paris’s Latin Quarter. Profits grew from L800m in
1970 to L8 billion in 1979. But in Italy the anni di
piombo, ‘the lead years’ of the 1970s, were marked
by the onset of terrorism and frayed relations with
trade unions. Luciano was himself the target of a
kidnapping attempt, the violence of which haunted
him for years. The Benettons decided to keep a low
profile, as explained by Luciano:
‘In Italy, even if in 1975 a thousand retailers sold
our product exclusively, they did not know much
about us. We remained invisible, refused to grant
interviews, kept financial information strictly to
ourselves and never published an annual report.
Because of our use of sub-contractors and the
fact that many stores were called Sisley, Tomato
or Merceria rather than Benetton, our real scale
and scope remained unknown to the public.’
The 1980s saw a dramatic improvement in Italy’s
economic and political situation. In 1983 Benetton
recruited Aldo Palmeri, a 36-year-old banker with a
master’s degree from the London School of
Economics, to introduce modern management
structures and methods to the family firm. Before
this, Luciano had considered management education
to be ‘a luxury reserved for bureaucrats with nothing
better to do’. Palmeri put in place a Board of
Directors, an Executive Committee and a supporting
management structure. He implemented a world-wide
state-of-the-art information technology system.
Senior managers with international experience were
recruited and external consultants were brought in as
needed. Benetton entered new markets such as the
Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and acquired
holdings in various other businesses. The creation of
3
In 1996 there were still a few Merceria shops, and a very
small number of shops called Tomato or Fantomax.
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In Holding S.p.A. marked Benetton’s foray into the
financial services sector, enabling them to offer a
comprehensive service to their partners. 4 In 1986
Benetton, which had recently published its first
annual report, secured a listing on the Milan stock
exchange. The stock was later liste on five exchanges
world-wide: London, Frankfurt, New York, Toronto
and Tokyo. The New Yorker remarked: ‘It is worth
remembering that Benetton, all but unknown in most
places less than a decade ago, now owns one of the
world’s most recognised brand names, as familiar as
Coca-Cola and Reebok.’ 5
The Benetton Group
In 1994, the textiles and clothing industry turned over
US$250 billion in the European Union; it employed
over 2.5 million people, produced a trading surplus of
over US$2 billion, and was second only to the
automotive sector in terms of value added in
manufacturing. 6 Germany, France and Italy were the
leading producers. Despite a recent surge in mergers
and acquisitions the industry remained fragmented
with over 100,000 producers - the top 20% of whom
accounted for about 80% of industry sales. Most
clothes were bought in boutiques or department
stores, although some variations existed across
countries (see Exhibit 2).
Benetton Group S.p.A. was the world’s biggest
consumer of wool and Europe’s largest clothing
concern, with 1994 sales of L2,788 billion and net
income of L210 billion. Its largest markets were Italy
(34% of sales), Germany (12%), Japan (11%) and
France (9%). 64 million items were sold world-wide
in 1994, up 12.7% on 1993. Outside the EU, the
increase was 36%. Aided by several devaluations of
the lira, Benetton had cut prices by up to 40 per cent
over the previous two years. Luciano was now the
Group’s chairman and main spokesman, Giuliana
was in charge of design, and Gilberto and Carlo
looked after finance and production, respectively. 7
4
5
6
7
‘...We quickly realised that finance was not for us. We came
out of it in 1987, just before the crash, having made a few
tens of billions of lire’, Gilberto Benetton in Les Echos, 20 21 January 1994.
A. Lee, ‘Profiles: Being Everywhere’, The New Yorker, Nov.
10, 1986.
In 1994 European Union member countries were as follows:
Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Greece,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom,
Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EU on 1 January
1995.
Disagreements over the globalisation strategy led to
Palmeri’s amicable departure in 1990. He returned in 1992 to
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In 1995, the newspaper Milano Finanza listed the
Benettons as the richest family in Italy. While clothes
manufacturing remained the core of the family
activities, they also, in 1989, began to acquire
controlling stakes in a number of other companies.
These businesses were regrouped as the familyowned Edizione Holding, chaired by Gilberto and
with an aggregate turnover of nearly L10,000 billion
in 1994 (see Exhibit 3) 8. In addition to its range of
clothing and accessories, Benetton licensed the
manufacture of products such as sunglasses and
spectacle frames, stationery, cosmetics, household
linens, lingerie, watches, toys, steering wheels or
knobs for gearshifts, golf equipment and luggage.
These products, some of which are shown in Exhibit
4, provided net income of L9 billion in 1993. In
1995, Benetton was asked by Motorola to design and
market a range of pagers. These colourful units, first
launched in the UK, were intended to develop the
youth market for pagers and were priced at £99, in
competition with the Swatch pager, priced at £119. A
joint-venture in Japan for the sale of designer
condoms (‘Benetton’s smallest item of clothing’) was
expected to contribute $40m to turnover.
In 1995 Benetton had three main brands:
• United Colors of Benetton (clothing for men and
women) which also included Blue Family (with
an emphasis on denim) and Benetton Undercolors
(underwear and beachwear): 60.8% of sales
• 012 United Colors of Benetton (clothing for
children under 12) including Zerotondo (clothing
and accessories for babies): 18.5% of sales
• Sisley (higher-fashion clothing): 11.8% of sales
Over two-thirds of their clothing was for women,
who represented 80% of Benetton’s shoppers.
Fabrizio Servente, head of product development,
commented:
‘The "objective" target for the adult Benetton
stores is the 18-24 year old, but of course there is
no age ceiling. Our product takes into account
quality and price. It’s clean, international, with a
lot of attention to design. It can be worn just as
easily by Princess Diana and by her maid, or her
maid’s daughter ... The way young people dress
8
leave again in February 1995. He was replaced by Carlo
Gilardi, a career banker.
Asked by the Daily Telegraph (27/2/95) about the link
between clothing and these activities, Gilberto answered,
‘There is no synergy with textiles but this group must grow
and be developed.’ He also told Libération (9/3/95), ‘Growth
in our traditional areas had limits ... We need to develop our
heritage … we have many [14] children.’
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is becoming more and more "uniform", but there
are differences from one region to another.
Benetton must still be Italian in Italy, Brazilian in
Brazil, Indian in India.’
Industry observers felt that Benetton had no clearly
identifiable world-wide competitor. While Esprit,
The Gap, Next, Stefanel, or Zara were often cited, it
was generally agreed that they did not have the same
geographical spread as Benetton. Servente’s view
was that Benetton had many competitors, and none:
‘The Benetton competitor doesn’t exist. On the
other hand, we have plenty of local competitors.
In Italy, it might be Stefanel. In France, Kookaï although they target a different age group. In
Britain, Next. In the US, Esprit. No [global]
competitor can offer the same quality and cost as
we can. A shop owner in Treviso may order
jumpers in Hong Kong, and clearly he will be
cheaper than us since he has lower fixed costs. If
that is a competitor, then we have 10,000 of them.
There are many that we keep an eye on, but not
any one in particular.’
The Benetton System
Benetton, today operates through a complex system
of over 500, sub-contractors and several joint
ventures specialising in design, cutting, assembling,
ironing or packaging, plus thousands of independent
retail outlets. Benetton’s success has been largely
attributed to this ability to combine fashion with
industry.
Production
While the pressure to reduce costs had led a number
of clothing firms to move their production to the
developing world, Benetton, which operates factories
world-wide, has kept over 80% of its production in
Italy, a strategy made possible by its emphasis on
automation and continuous modernisation.
The Castrette (Treviso) production centre currently
covers an area of 190,000 square metres, including
new twin facilities which are among the most
advanced in the world producing cotton outerwear:
shirts, jackets, skirts and jeans. They are Benetton’s
latest technological accomplishment. Afra and Tobia
Scarpa employed a suspension technique hitherto
used in naval architecture, to reduce the number of
supporting pillars, allowing space to be organised
according to production needs. A computerised
system regulates humidity and lighting to limit
energy waste and minimise colour distortions. The
plants can produce 80 million items per year, with
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800 staff. A fibre-optic communications network
links the plants to Benetton’s automated distribution
centre nearby.
A computerised network provides the Group’s central
system in Ponzano with real-time data from retail
points all over the world and interlinked retailing,
production units and warehousing. The L42 billion
distribution centre in Castrette is the length of a
football pitch, with robots handling up to 30,000
boxes a day. On each box, a bar-coded label specifies
the particular shop to which it is to be sent. The
robots read the bar codes, sort the boxes and store
them while a staff of five specialists monitor their
movements on a computer. Benetton can produce and
deliver garments anywhere in the world within 10
days of orders being taken.
All purchasing activities are centralised, since this is
the main source of economies of scale in the clothing
industry. From the beginning Benetton has used
natural fibres - virgin wool and cotton. ‘The Group
can contemplate its own production of cotton and
wool, with a complete cycle from sheep to sweater’,
said Carlo Benetton, the Group’s production chief.
Benetton owns a 3,600-hectare (8,900 acres) cotton
farm in Texas and is the largest producer of wool in
Patagonia, with ranches spread over 700,000
hectares. Although Benetton uses only 10% of the
wool it produces, running these ranches enables it to
understand and improve the technology of wool
production, and to strengthen its negotiating power
with suppliers.
Hundreds of sub-contractors perform knitting,
assembly and most of the finishing (about 70% of the
production process). They account for close to 30%
of total manufacturing and distribution costs and
often have less than 15 employees in order to save on
social security costs. Most of them work exclusively
for Benetton, which provides technical know-how,
financial consulting and other services, and exerts
strict quality control throughout production. A senior
executive commented:
‘[They] provide our much-vaunted flexibility.
With minimum investment, we can double
production one season, then halve it the next
season with no personnel or machinery costs to
us.’
Strategic, capital-intensive and complex operations
such as design, cutting and dyeing are performed
internally. Every year, an international team of 200
stylists and designers prepare two world-wide
collections and two re-assortment collections under
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Giuliana’s supervision - a total of 4000 models. The
designers are given contracts for a maximum of six
seasons (three years) in order to encourage a
constant flow of new ideas. Most of the production is
assembled un-dyed, and colour decisions can then be
made late in the production cycle. This process is
slightly more expensive but it allows the company to
produce 30% of its output at almost the last moment.
Benetton uses the latest CAD-CAM (computer aided
design and manufacturing) systems, allowing a new
design to be created and moved into production in a
matter of hours. A new software programme,
developed by Benetton in collaboration with
Japanese specialists, makes it possible to produce a
seamless knitted sweater (‘a concept which could
revolutionise the industry’) in half an hour.
Retailing
Benetton’s unique distribution philosophy was
another important reason for its success. ‘We didn’t
want to become directly involved in the selling side,’
Luciano Benetton has said 9, ‘so in the beginning it
was friends with financial resources who moved into
this part of the business’. By 1995, from over 8,000
retail outlets (see Exhibit 5), Benetton owned and
operated fewer than 50 ‘flagship stores’ in cities such
as Milan, New York, Paris and Düsseldorf. The rest
were owned by independent retailers who typically
ran five or six outlets.
The company deals with these retailers through a
network of 83 agents, controlled by seven area
managers reporting to Benetton’s commercial
director. The agents, who are independent
entrepreneurs, have exclusive rights over a territory;
they select store owners, and receive a 4%
commission on orders placed with them. They
supervise operations in their territory, keep an eye on
the market and offer guidance to store owners on
product selection, merchandising and the location of
new stores, making sure that Benetton’s policies are
respected. Another important responsibility of the
agents is to find new retailers who ‘fit’ the Benetton
culture. They are themselves encouraged to re-invest
their earnings in new stores of their own.
Upon entering a new market, the site for a ‘lead’
store is selected, after which the agent tries to blanket
the area with several other shops offering Benetton
products (Milan alone has over 45 stores). Luciano
Benetton commented:
9
Io e i mei fratelli
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‘I discovered that, even if the brand was unknown,
seeing three or four of our shops in one town
would give a feeling of security equivalent to a
good advertising campaign ... We prefer small
spaces ... a very limited selection, in a store that’s
always crowded, if possible. We want a lot
ofpeople looking at the same thing, watching
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others buying clothes.’
Some retailers have complained that Benetton was
‘sticking too many stores together’ or that ‘the
Benetton agent put us in the wrong location.’ Shop
owners have to sell Benetton products exclusively but
they do not sign franchise agreements; neither do
they have to pay Benetton a fee for use of its name or
a royalty based on a percentage of sales or profits.
Luciano Benetton explained:
‘We selected them on the basis of personal
knowledge and individual capability, rather than
commercial experience ... [Their] prior career
was of no importance, but [they] had to have the
right spirit … Many of them were friends, or
friends of friends, we didn’t ask them to give us a
percentage of profits... Frankly, I was
uncomfortable with the idea of American-style
11
contracts.’
In 1995, the retailers could choose from several store
layouts designed by Scarpa, some of which are
shown in Exhibit 6, 12 Benetton supplied point-of-sale
advertising material; shops could advertise in the
local press once the company had checked the
advertisement. Prices were suggested by Benetton,
mark-downs outside the sales periods had to be
agreed with the agent. Stock control and cash flow
management were major concerns for the retailers
since Benetton produced to order six months ahead,
did not take back unsold merchandise and required
direct payment within 90 to 120 days of delivery. The
importance of the end-of-season ‘sales’ periods,
which accounted for up to 40% of total revenue, was
growing. During these periods, the usual 120% markup could fall to zero, or even to a 10% loss.
Senior executives travelled constantly, visiting shops,
talking to consumers and observing competitors.
Luciano Benetton himself spent two weeks every
month flying around the world in his private jet. An
executive explained how new products and store
10 Luciano Benetton, ‘Franchising: How Brand Power Works’,
in P. Stobart, ed., Brand Power, New York University Press,
1994.
11 Io e i mei fratelli
12 Full-scale models of these layouts can be seen on a mock
‘Benetton Street’ at Benetton’s headquarters.
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concepts were tested:
‘We don’t do a lot of market studies. We find an
entrepreneur who believes in the product and the
brand, and who invests his own money. We give
him all the support we can, and he opens a shop. If
it works, we go for it.’
In recent years, Benetton had encouraged retailers to
either upgrade existing stores to larger ‘megastores’
where the whole range was displayed, or start selling
smaller, specialised collections. 13 Palmeri felt that
this change posed a new challenge:
‘Most people running today’s stores are not ready
to face a new strategy ... They became very rich
with the Benetton system. Others don’t have the
money to invest ... Anybody can run a store of 50
square metres. It’s a completely different thing to
run a system of 10 superstores each with 1,000
square metres.’ 14
While international expansion had generally been
successful, the USA proved to be a difficult
market. Benetton opened its first store in New
York in 1979 but had to wait till 1983 to see sales
take off. Growth peaked in 1988 with a:total of
700 stores, but by 1995 Benetton had only 150
stores 15 in the US. 16 However, the selling square
footage had doubled over the preceding five years,
due to the opening of megastores. Two strong
markets were California and the North East where,
according to Luciano Benetton, ‘consumers were
more European’.
Industry observers attributed Benetton’s US
difficulties to a number of factors including high
prices, increased competition from firms such as
The Gap, The Limited and Land’s End and a weak
understanding of American customer service
norms. For example, American consumers were
frustrated that they could not return a Benetton
product bought at one store to another, even in the
same city. Further, Benetton’s unique ‘no written
contract/no franchise’ culture proved difficult to
import and had led to several legal disputes. Other
critics cited Benetton’s policy of two collections a
year versus that of The Gap which changed styles
13 In March 1995, London-based Nota Bene, in collaboration
with the UK’s largest mail order company, Grand Universal
Stores, secured exclusive rights to sell Benetton products
through mail order in the UK.
14 W. Ketelhohn, ‘An Interview with Aldo Palmeri of
Benetton’, European Management Journal, Sept. 1993.
15 In addition, Benetton had 271 ‘shops in stores’ and
concessions in the US.
16 In the same period, The Gap grew from 900 to 1400 stores.
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every four to six weeks. This was seen as hurting
Benetton, especially among teenagers. An industry
analyst commented, ‘The trend is clearly going
towards a much more continuous change of
product and Benetton just has to learn that.’
However, Luciano dismissed these concerns,
insisting ‘two collections a year is perfect.’ 17
Benetton’s approach to international expansion is
twofold: through its own independent agents or
through local partners with whom it sets up a licence
agreement and develops a joint venture for the local
market. The Group hoped to be present in ‘as many
countries as competed in the Olympics’. In 1995, it
had stores in unusual outposts such as Albania, Cuba
and Libya, where it was ‘the only store of its kind’,
according to Luciano. The Group was also targeting
several other promising markets: China, where it
planned to open 300 outlets by 1997 and where it saw
a potential market of 120 million customers, India,
with 80 million potential consumers, Latin America,
with 70 million, Turkey with 60 million and
Southeast Asia with 50 million. On 12 September
1995, a Benetton store was opened in Sarajevo, the
besieged capital of war-torn Bosnia. Its manager,
Vesna Kapidzic, commented, ‘Anyone can open a
store after the war. We think it is nice to open this
store during the war.’ 18
Benetton’s Communication
Benetton’s early advertisements were rather
conventional, focusing on the product and stressing
the quality of wool.
The logo, a stylised knot of yarn and the word
‘Benetton’, were later united within a green rectangle
with rounded corners. During the 1970s, the company
reduced its advertising consistent with its decision to
adopt a low profile in Italy. The first US advertising
17 ‘The Faded Colors of Benetton,’ Business Week, International
Edition, 10 April 1995.
18 ‘Bosnia: Store Opening Symbolises Sarajevo’s Reawakening’
Los Angeles Times, 13 September 1995.
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campaigns, handled by a small agency (Kathy Travis)
stressed the European origins and international
success of Benetton. ‘Last year we made 8,041,753
sweaters ... sold through 1573 Benetton stores
internationally.’ These campaigns contributed less to
Benetton’s breakthrough in the US than the runaway
success among students of a simple model (the rugby
polo) and the awakening of Americans to fashion
‘Made in Italy’. 19
In 1982 Luciano Benetton met Oliviero Toscani. a
well-known fashion and advertising photographer
who lived in Tuscany and had studios in Paris and
New York. His clients included, among others, Jesus
Jeans, Valentino, Esprit, Club Med and Bata (see
Exhibit 7). Toscani convinced Luciano that Benetton
ought to promote itself as a lifestyle, not a clothing
business. At Toscani’s suggestion, Benetton retained
Eldorado, a small Paris agency with which Toscani
had often worked as a photographer.
England and the US reflected hysterical racism.
‘Shame on you!’ wrote one correspondent from
Manchester in the north of England, ‘You have
mixed races that God wants to keep apart!’
United Colors of Benetton
In 1985, a UNESCO official visited the studio where
Toscani was photographing a multi-racial group of
children and exclaimed: ‘This is fantastic, it’s the
United Colors here!’ This became the new slogan:
‘United Colors of Benetton’. The posters reconciled
instantly recognisable ‘enemies’: a German and an
Israeli, a Greek and a Turk, and an Argentinean and a
Briton. Another poster showed two small black
children bearing the US and Soviet flags.
All the Colours in the World
The first campaigns were conventional in style,
stressing social status and conformism, and featuring
groups of young people wearing Benetton clothing.
The real departure came in 1984 with a new concept,
‘All the Colours in the World’. This campaign
showed groups of teenagers from different countries
and ethnic groups dressed in colourful knitwear. The
print and billboard campaign was distributed by J.
Walter Thompson (JWT) in 14 countries.
The campaign was greeted with enthusiasm and
Benetton received hundreds of letters of praise. But
it prompted shocked reactions in South Africa,
where the ads were carried only by magazines
catering to the black community. A few letters, from
19 Benetton’s sales have always relied upon a few highly
successful models. For example, in 1994, the crew-neck navy
blue pullover accounted for 40% of the winter sales in
France.
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The multi-racial message was made clearer still
with the theme chosen for the 1986 and 1987
campaigns: ‘the globe’. One ad showed a white
adolescent dressed as an Hassidic Jew holding a
moneybox full of dollar bills, next to a black
teenager dressed as an American Indian. ‘In the
eyes of Eldorado’s directors, all of them Jewish,
the picture was humorous enough to make it clear
that we were taking aim at the stereotype [of the
money-grabbing Jew],’ wrote Luciano Benetton. 20
Benetton was flooded with protests, mostly from
France and Italy. In New York, Jewish groups
threatened to boycott Benetton shops. Benetton
replaced the ad with a picture of a Palestinian and
a Jew, which was also criticised.
Luciano commented:
‘I was a bit discouraged, but I had learned a
fundamental lesson. We had chosen to promote an
image that touched very deep feelings, identities
for which millions of people had fought and died.
We had reached the limits and felt the
responsibilities of commercial art. Everybody was
20 Io e i mei fratelli
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7
now watching us_ and even a small dose of
ingenuity could hurt us and irritate others. I
promised myself I would control our image even
more rigorously.’ 21
The 1987 autumn/winter campaign, ‘United Fashions
of Benetton’, showed models wearing Benetton
clothes with accessories that evoked the great names
in fashion. ‘United Superstars of Benetton’ was the
slogan for the 1988 campaign, featuring pairs dressed
up as Joan of Arc and Marilyn Monroe, Leonardo da
Vinci and Julius Caesar, or Adam and Eve - two-long
haired teenagers dressed in denim.
discussed by the advertising team, then shown to
Luciano for final approval. This allowed Benetton to
produce advertisements which cost about one-third of
those of its competitors. 23 Benetton did not usually
advertise on television because of the high costs but
used print and outdoor media extensively. It limited
itself to two series of campaigns (Spring and Fall).
Each campaign would typically last a couple of
weeks, and consist of a small number of visuals
shown in an increasing number of countries. By
1995, Benetton spent about 4% of turnover on
communication, which included campaigns for
United Colors of Benetton and Sisley, sports
sponsorship, a quarterly magazine, Colors 24 and
funding for its communications school, Fabrica.
This shift to in-house communications was
accompanied by a radical change in approach. The
1989 ads no longer showed the product, didn’t use a
slogan and replaced the knot logo with a small green
rectangle that was to become the company’s
trademark. Hard-hitting images began to deliver an
unambiguously political message championing racial
equality. One ad showing a black woman nursing a
white baby generated controversy in South Africa
and in the US, where it was seen as a throwback to
the era of slavery. Benetton withdrew the ad in the
US, explaining that ‘the campaign is intended to
promote equality, not friction’.
A Message of Racial Equality
1989 marked a turning point in Benetton’s
communication activities. The company terminated
its relationship with Eldorado. 22 ‘From the
beginning, Luciano Benetton wanted image to be an
in-house product, so that it would reflect the
company’s soul,’ Toscani explained later. United
Colors Communication would soon handle all aspects
of Benetton’s communication including production
and media buying. The entire process was managed
by less than ten people; Toscani’s visuals would be
21 Io e i mei fratelli
22 Two years later, Benetton fired JWT and set up United
Colors Communication as a full-service agency.
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This became Benetton’s most praised visual ever,
winning awards in five European countries. Another ad,
showing a black man and a white man handcuffed
together, offended British blacks, who thought it
showed a white policeman arresting a black. London
Transport refused to show the poster in its network.
23 Financial World, 17 September 1991, p. 41.
24 In 1993 spending amounted to 5.7% to finance the TV launch
of Tribù, a line of scents and cosmetics. The complete
Benetton fragrance business was restructured in 1995.
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An ad displaying brightly coloured condoms (‘a call
for social responsibility in the face of overpopulation
and sexually transmitted disease’) was intended to
‘demystify condoms by displaying them in a playful
and colourful way, like fashion items’.
The 1990 campaign continued the theme, with softer
images: the hand of a black child resting in a white
man’s hand; a white wolf and a black lamb; a small
black child asleep amid white stuffed bears; the hand
of a white relay runner passing a baton to a black
team-mate.
Simultaneously, condoms were distributed in
Benetton’s shops world-wide. Benetton also
distributed HIV guides in the shanty towns of Rio
‘because it was important that even people who could
never buy a Benetton sweater should get the basic
communication.’
Benetton’s attempt to show two babies on their
potties on a 770 square meter billboard opposite
Milan’s cathedral was banned by the city authorities
and the Roman Catholic cardinal. That year, Benetton
won its first advertising award in the USA.
Other ads included a white boy kissing a black girl, a
group of Pinocchio puppets in different hues of
wood, and a multi-ethnic trio of children playfully
sticking out their tongues.
Social Issues
By 1991 Benetton’s campaigns, which now tackled
issues beyond racism, were reaching audiences in
more than 100 countries. A picture showing a
military cemetery, released at the start of the Gulf
war, was turned down by all but one newspaper, Il
Sole 24 Ore in Italy.
While this last ad won awards in Britain and
Germany, it was withdrawn from display in Arabic
countries, where it was considered offensive.
Later that year, Toscani chose to focus on: ‘love,
the underlying reason for all life’. The campaign
featured, among others, a priest and a nun kissing;
and Giusy, a screaming new-born baby with her
umbilical cord still attached.
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angelic blond-haired child next to a black child
whose hair was styled to evoke horns, which the
ASA also criticised.
In the US, the Anti-Defamation League condemned
the priest-and-nun ad for ‘trivialising, mocking,
profaning and offending religious values’, and
several magazines rejected it.
In France, the Bureau de Vérification de la Publicité
(BVP), a self-regulating advertising body,
recommended the removal of the priest-and-nun ad in
the name of ‘decency and self-discipline’, whilst in
England, it won the Eurobest Award. Others were
also positive: Sister Barbara Becker Schroeder from
Alzey, Germany, wrote to Benetton: ‘I feel the photo
expresses great tenderness, security and peace ... I
would be grateful if you would let me have one or
more posters, preferably in different sizes.’ 25 In
November 1991, Benetton won a court case initiated
by AGRIF (L’Alliance générale contre le racisme et
pour le respect de la famille française) where it was
accepted that the nun and priest poster was not racist
or anti-Christian.
In Britain, Benetton ignored a warning issued by the
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) concerning
the Giusy ad and within days, the authority received
some 800 complaints. The offending posters were
withdrawn - and replaced with an ad showing an
25 This is one of 100 letters (positive and negative) published at
Benetton’s initiative in P. Landi and L. Pollini, eds. Cosa
C’entra L’Aids Con i Maglioni?, A. Mondadori Editore,
1993.
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In the USA, Giusy elicited some negative reactions
but was accepted by Parenting, Self and Vogue. It
was rejected by Child, Cosmopolitan, and Elle. The
posters were not displayed in Milan where the city
officials complained of ‘the excessive impact and
vulgarity of the subject.’ The local High Court ruled
that ‘the picture offended public order and general
morality.’ Giusy was also banned in France,
Germany and Ireland, where the advertising space
was donated to the Association for the Fight Against
Cancer. These reactions surprised Benetton, as well
as a number of others:
‘We should ask ourselves the question of why such a
natural, vital and basic image as that of a baby
being born, offends the public. Every day we are
confronted with pictures of death, often
meaningless, and we put up with them in silence, or
very nearly. Yet we are afraid to see an image of
life.’ (L‘Unita, 10/9/91)
‘Why must beer be drunk topless on the deck of a
sailing boat and the smiling, happy mum always be
half-naked as she swaddles the baby in a nappy like
a scented pastry? Isn’t all this rather ridiculous?’
(Il Giornale Nuovo, 26/10/91)
According to Benetton, ‘Once the period of rejection
was over, the picture began to be understood and
appreciated.’ Giusy won an award from the Société.
Générale d’Affichage in Switzerland and Bologna’s
General Clinic asked for a copy to decorate its labour
room.
The ‘Reality’ Campaigns
In 1992, Benetton broke new ground with two series
of news photographs on issues such as AIDS,
immigration, terrorism, violence, and political
refugees. The use of real-life pictures showing, for
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10
example, a bombed car, Albanian refugees, a Mafiastyle killing and a soldier holding a human bone
provoked controversy around the world, despite
Benetton’s repeated claim that it was trying to
prompt debate of serious social issues.
In Britain, the ASA described the ad as ‘obscene’ and
‘a despicable exploitation of a tragic situation’ and
asked magazines to reject it. Benetton donated the
use of 500 paid UK poster sites to the charity
Trading. Maggie Alderson, the editor of the UK
edition of Elle, which ran a statement on two blank
pages instead of the ad, commented:
‘It is an incredibly moving image in the right
context, but to use it as an advertisement for a
fashion store selling jumpers is incredibly insulting.
They have stepped out of the bounds of what is
acceptable and what makes this so sickening is that
they have touched up the photograph to make it look
biblical because the AIDS victim resembles Jesus
Christ,’ (The Guardian, 24/1/92).
This claim was supported by Patrick Robert, a
photographer with the Sygma agency, some of whose
pictures had been used in the campaigns: ‘… the
absence of an explanatory caption on my photographs
[soldier with human bone, truck bulging with
refugees] does not bother me … for me the objective
of the campaign is reached … to draw the public’s
attention to these victims.’ 26
A picture showing David Kirby 27, an AIDS patient,
surrounded by his family on his deathbed, stirred
particularly strong emotions.
In France, the BVP took an unprecedented step:
without even waiting for the ad to be printed, it
threatened to exclude any publication that dared carry
it. Only one publication ignored the ban: Max, a
magazine for young people. its editor, Nicolas Finet,
commented, ‘Our readers, those between 15 and 30
years old, are directly affected by this topic. This
campaign is one way of approaching the AIDS
problem whilst avoiding the socio-medical aspect.
Our readers’ letters have shown that we were not
wrong’ (quoted in the French advertising weekly
Stratégies: 18/2/92), In Switzerland Schweizer
Illustrierte decided to accept the ad saying that it did
not hurt mass sensitivity but ‘wounded only one
thing: the rules of the games according to which the
message must be dull, stale even.’
Many organisations and advocacy groups for
homosexuals charged Benetton with callous
exploitation, saying it offered no information about
prevention. However, some AIDS activists felt it
gave the issue a higher public profile, an opinion
which others shared:
26 In Benetton par Toscani, Musée d’Art Conternporain,
Lausanne, 1995.
27 The photographer Therese Frare won the World Photo Award
for this picture.
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‘For the large majority of the population which
thinks that AIDS is not their business, Benetton’s
ads will be a slap in their face … and I am sure it
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11
will be more effective than every campaign to date
by any public or private body.’ (L’Unita, 25/1/92).
‘The company estimates that between 500 million
and one billion people have seen the AIDS image,
far more than ever saw it when it came out in Life.
A public that is reading fewer newspapers and
believing fewer broadcasts might begin to swallow
tiny doses of information between the ads for
liqueur and lingerie.’ (Vicky Goldbert in The New
York Times, 3/5/92).
used. Rather it is we who are using Benetton.
David is speaking louder now that he is dead
than when he was alive.’ (II Mattino, 22/3/92).
The second 1992 campaign once more used hardhitting news pictures: an oil-covered bird from the
Gulf; an albino Zulu woman ostracised by other
Zulus; a grime-smeared Salvadoran child carrying a
white doll; pigs in a trash heap in Peru; children
building a brick wall; KGB agents arresting a
suspect; an empty electric chair in a US jail.
‘The picture ... has done more to soften people’s
heart on the AIDS issue than any other I have ever
seen. You can’t look at that picture and hate a
person with AIDS ... As far as the comment that it
was "touched up to look like Jesus Christ" ... I
know that at Pater Noster [hospital], several times,
with several patients through the years, nurses
have made the same comment, "he looks like
Jesus"‘(Barb Cordle, David Kirby’s nurse in
Interview, 4/92).
The Economist (1/2/92) felt that the ads targeted the
young and,
‘what better means to appeal to them than by
offending their elders ... expect no repentance, or
tamer ads, from Benetton unless its sales start to
drop.’
Asked about the campaign’s impact on sales, Peter
Fressola, Director of Communications, Benetton
Services New York, emphasised that individual ads
were not geared to boost sales and that Benetton was
aware that
‘people are not going to look at an image of a
burning car, and then make a best-seller out of our
fuschia sweater.’ (The Wall Street Journal,
28/5/92).
Reacting to the charges of exploitation, Benetton
argued that the David Kirby visual increased
awareness of the need for collective and personal
solidarity with AIDS patients, created a media
tribune for HIV organisations and others involved in
the issue, and encouraged a debate on how best to
communicate on AIDS. 28 They also stressed that
David’s family was in favour of the photo being
used. In support of the ad, the Kirby family went on
the record:
‘It is what he would have wanted ... We don’t feel
28 Around this time, Benetton started advertising in gay
magazines, which were generally ignored by major
corporations.
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The Financial Times commented:
‘Like its previous campaign, Benetton has again
focused on the downbeat and the unhappy, this
time selecting a set of apparent outcasts to sell its
colourful jumpers.’ (17/9/92)
The Clothing Redistribution Project
The spring 1993 campaign showed Luciano
Benetton, newly elected to the Italian Senate and
named as Italy’s leading entrepreneur, stark naked,
modestly screened by a caption reading 'I want my
clothes back’. A second ad followed: ‘Empty your
closets.’
People were invited to donate clothes of any brand
at Benetton stores. The campaign, which ran in
about 1000 magazines and 150 dailies, was widely
welcomed: ‘It is a clear break from Benetton’s
self-serious attitude of the past. It also marks the first
time the company has engaged in direct action to
support a cause.’ (The Wall Street Journal,
27/1/93). 29
29 Pascal Sommariba, Benetton’s International Advertising
Director, countered charges of a lack of charitable giving,
saying: ‘If a company makes 10% profits and takes 20% of it
for charity, this is 2% of its turnover. If you take just 1/3rd of
a communication budget of, say 5% of turnover, you are
already there and it does not look like a charitable company,
it is fairer.’
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Some 460 tons of clothes were collected in 83
countries and re-distributed world-wide with the help
of charities such as Caritas, the International Red
Cross and the Red Crescent.
The Venice Triptych
In June 1993, Toscani exhibited a 400 square meter
triptych at the Venice Biennial art show. A specially
restored chapel housed the work, which showed 56
close-up photos of male and female genitals - blacks
and whites, adults and children. Benetton added its
logo and published the picture as an ad in Libération.
That day the newspaper sold an extra 40,000 copies.
The BVP threatened to sue. Two days later, French
men’s underwear-maker Eminence published a
double page in Libération showing as many (male)
crotches with the same layout and the slogan: ‘We
like dressing them.’
The HIV-Positive Campaign
A near-unanimous outcry greeted the Fall 1993
campaign, which consisted of three stark photographs
showing an arm, buttock and crotch, each branded
with the words ‘HIV Positive’.
Benetton explained that the pictures referred to the
three main avenues for infection, as well as to the
ostracism of AIDS victims. In Singapore, Danny
Chow (President, ASA) dismissed the ads as ‘easily
another ploy to get free publicity’ (Straits Times,
27/9/93). The Italian advertising watchdog, the Giurì
della Pubblicità, condemned the campaign for ‘not
respecting the dignity of human beings.’
The AIDS association LILA (Lega Italiana per la
Lotta contro l’AIDS) didn’t approve of it but took a
pragmatic approach and decided to use it in its fight
against AIDS. In the USA, reactions were mostly
negative. David Eng (Gay Men’s Health Crisis, New
York) felt that ‘the ad can fuel hatred and
disempowerment … people can get the message that
this [i.e. branding] is what we should be doing to
people who are HIV positive.’ (The New York Times,
19/9/93). The National Review refused the ad without
seeing it. The British ACET (AIDS Care Education
and Training) demanded the ad’s withdrawal.
The Association Française de la Lutte contre le Sida
(AFLS), a French government-sponsored AIDS
group, sued Benetton, for ‘hijacking a humanitarian
cause for commercial ends.’ Four HIV sufferers
joined in the lawsuit, with charges of ‘humiliation’
and ‘debasement’. According to their lawyers, the
brandings were an implicit call to discriminate
against patients, and evoked the Nazi death camps. 30
A representative of AIDES, another French
association, felt the ad could be misinterpreted: ‘It is
clearly stated that sodomy or intravenous drug abuse
are the [major] causes of AIDS. .... Such short cuts
are misleading and stupid,’ (CB News, 20/9/93).
The brother of one sufferer bought a full page ad in
Libération, and published a picture of his brother’s
emaciated face with the caption: ‘During the
agony, the selling continues. For the attention of
Luciano Benetton, from Olivier BesnardRousseau. AIDS sufferer, terminal phase.’ There
were increasingly strident calls to boycott the firm;
including one from a former cabinet minister. Arcat
Sida, a French AIDS support group headed by Pierre
Bergé, CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, sponsored a
poster showing a condom stuffed with bank notes
next to a ‘United Boycott’ logo in Benetton’s
30 On 1 February 1995, a Paris court ruled against Benetton and
awarded damages of about US$32,000. On 6 July 1995, a
German court ruled that these pictures offended the dignity of
IIIV-infected people.
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signature typeface and green colour. Stores were
vandalised and sprayed with graffiti leading some
store owners to complain that ‘Mr Benetton listens to
nobody.’ (Le Nouvel Observateur, 20/12/93).
Luciano Benetton was himself surprised and hurt by
the violence of these reactions. In the Group’s
defence, its long-standing commitment to the fight
against AIDS and the extent of its actions were cited.
On December 1, 1993 (World AIDS Day), Benetton
in cooperation with the association Actup had a 22
metre pink condom placed over the obelisk in the
Place de la Concorde in Paris. Other Benetton actions
against AIDS are presented in Exhibit 8. In early
1994 Luciano received an award given by the
President of South Korea in recognition of the
consciousness-raising role played by the company.
The Known Soldier
In February 1994, a Benetton ad showing bloodied
battle fatigues appeared on billboards and in
newspapers across 110 countries.
The clothes had belonged to a Croatian soldier killed
in Bosnia, as a caption in Serbo-Croat indicated:
‘I, Gojko Gagro, father of the deceased
Marinko Gagro, born in 1963 in the province of
Citluk, would like that my son’s name and all
that remains of him be used in the name of
peace against war.’
Indignation reached a climax in France, where the
minister for human rights and humanitarian action
urged consumers to stop buying Benetton clothes and
to ‘rip them off the backs of those who wear them.’
Once again, several Benetton stores were vandalised,
causing a growing sense of unease among some
retailers.
The French advertising weekly Stratégies announced
it would not write about Benetton’s advertising as
long as it remained in the same vein: ‘Besides the
disgust it causes, this [latest] ad raises the issue of the
responsibility of advertisers. Can one do anything,
use anything, to attract attention?’ (25/2/94). Marina
Galanti, Benetton’s spokeswoman reacted to the
outcry: “ … If we were trying to sell T-shirts, there
probably would not be a worse way of doing it. We
are not that naïve. It’s meant to question the notion of
institutionalised violence and the role of advertising.’
(The Guardian, 16/2/94). The autumn 1994 worldwide campaign featured in print media and billboards
showed a mosaic of 1000 faces arranged to softly
highlight the word AIDS at its centre. This campaign
attracted little attention.
The Alienation Campaign
The spring 1995 campaign featured two visuals based
on the theme of ‘alienation’. One showed lines of
barbed wire, coming from a variety of troubled
countries such as Bosnia. Lebanon and Israel as well
as from private gardens.
The advertisement was greeted by an immediate
uproar. While it became an instant success in
Sarajevo, where the Oslobodenje newspaper printed
it, leading dailies such as the Los Angeles Times, Le
Monde, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
refused to carry it, and the Vatican denounced
Benetton for ‘image terrorism’. Reactions among the
combatants and people in the war zones depended on
whether Gagro was seen as a victim or an aggressor
and whose cause the ad was perceived as helping.
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The other showed a jungle of TV antennae
symbolising the ‘invisible barriers erected by the
overcrowding of video images, which not only affect
interpersonal relationships, but also people’s
perception of reality.’ Billed as ‘an invitation to an
open discussion on real and virtual prisons, on the
mental and televisual dictatorships which restrict
freedom’, the campaign did not elicit strong
reactions. Benetton denied that the ads reflected a
softer, toned-down communications strategy.
In October 1995 Luciano indicated that all twelve
cases had been won by Benetton and that ‘the affair
was now over’. 32 Financial analysts were generally
optimistic about Benetton’s prospects as they felt the
markets had already discounted any possible negative
impact due to the controversies. Salomon Brothers
issued a ‘Buy’ recommendation on Benetton stock on
17 October 1995.
Around the same time, Benetton’s US retailers
launched a campaign developed by Chiat/Day of
New York, designed to appeal to more conservative
audiences. The new US campaign focused on
clothing and included TV spots as well as eight-page
magazine inserts. Luciano explained that this
initiative was not an alternative to their international
campaign, but an additional support to its US store
owners.
Benetton argued that its communication philosophy
was born out of a need to develop a distinctive image
targeted at a global customer base and to make the
most of its limited resources. The company claimed
that ‘various studies have shown ... that consumers
are as concerned by what a company stands for as
they are about the price-value relationship of that
company’s products’. (Financial Times, 20/4/92).
Further, the general feeling within Benetton was that
the 8000 Benetton outlets in 120 countries constituted
the best advertising for its products in the streets of
the world’s main cities. ‘This is where we promote
the products and the prices. Not in the ads,’ (Luciano
Benetton, CB News, 28/6/93). Benetton also
explained that the sheer diversity of their product
range made it impossible to design individual product
campaigns for each market.
The German Lawsuits
The furore over the recent Benetton campaigns
reached a peak in Germany. Here 12 retailers being
sued by Benetton for non-payment 31 defended their
case by accusing Benetton of provoking adverse
reaction in consumers through their ads, with a
consequent drop in sales. Benetton stated that ‘ …
total sales in Germany have remained stable in 1994
... 1992 was a record year ... 8 million items were
sold in 1993 and 1994 versus 4 million in 1985.’
While the group of retailers claimed that the number
of Benetton stores had dropped from 650 to 500, with
100 more dropouts expected, Benetton maintained
that it had 613 stores in Germany in 1994 as opposed
to 650 in 1993. Marina Galanti explained that, ‘What
we are talking about is a lawyer’s trick to use a cause
célèbre as a peg on which to hang every kind of
grievance .., these store owners may not like the ads,
but the Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art has them
on permanent exhibition.’ (The Independent, 6/2/95).
Threats of legal action in France and other European
countries had also been made. A body called The
Benetton Retailers Interest Group had been formed to
co-ordinate the various actions against Benetton.
However, other retailers formed the ‘Pro-Benetton’
group in Germany to ‘fight the discredit done to
Benetton by the disgruntled retailers.’
31 Ulfert Engels, the lawyer co-ordinating the 12 cases said:
‘...Our tactic was to get Benetton to sue, otherwise we would
have had to fight in an Italian court and we prefer to fight in
Germany.’ (Marketing Week, 3/2/95)
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Benetton’s Communication Philosophy
Benetton had received several major awards for its
advertising campaigns (Exhibit 9) and some of its ads
were displayed in museums world-wide. Even its
critics acknowledged that ‘it had achieved probably
more visibility than any print campaign in world
advertising history,’ to quote Robin Wright,
Chairman of the advertising agency WCRS
(Campaign 25/3/94). Nonetheless, its communication
approach had created a raging debate among
advertisers:
‘Advertising should sell happiness ... this pair [Toscani and
Benetton] have understood that society is adrift, and they
have chosen the easy path: instead of extending a lifebuoy,
they are pushing society’s head down further under water,
rubbing its nose in sex, in AIDS, in shit’, (Jacques Seguela,
Euro-RSCG, interviewed on Antenne 2, 16/9/93).
‘Benetton’s banal expressions of moral outrage were not
bold, but transparent. Not courageous, but cowardly. Not
socially responsible, but socially irresponsible - a cynical
publicity gimmick contrived to horrify the many in order to
sell pricey T-shirts to the few.’ (Bob Garfield, Advertising
Age, 27/3/95).
‘[Toscani’s] "advertising" is totally irrelevant to the
32 ‘Germany: Benetton ends dispute
(Handelsblat, 12 October 1995)
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a copyright infringement.
with
retailers’.
15
products he is meant to be selling ... You can put a fourletter word in a headline and it will certainly be noticed,
but it doesn’t mean I like you for it.’ (Ced Vidler, Lintas
Worldwide) 33
‘Benetton has restated a truth about successful advertising
... that to create a distinctive "culture" around a brand is ...
often more important than a practical selling benefit.’
(James Lowther, Saatchi & Saatchi)
‘This is obviously a company with profound understanding
of how advertising really works ... Cynics say Benetton is
using shock value to sell sweaters. Benetton counters they
are doing important consciousness-raising. I would say
both are right ... They sell a little product. They do a little
good. Most advertising does neither.’ (Marty Cooke,
Chiat/Day).
Toscani was extremely critical of traditional
advertising and was seen as a maverick: 34
‘Advertisers have done a lot of social damage ...
using fake images and fake dreams to sell us their
products, so that today if you are a girl you really
are a nobody if you don’t look like Isabella
Rossellini ... With the amount large multinationals
spend on advertising they could make the best
campaign in the world against drug abuse, for
example.’ (Financial Times 28/1/93)
‘Advertising is the richest and most powerful form
of communication in the world ... Ad agencies are
obsolete ... They create a false reality and want
people to believe in it. We show reality and we’re
criticised for it. Our advertising is a Rorschach test
of what you bring to the image ... Shocking violence
in the news is normal. But when you take the same
photo out of the news and put a Benetton logo on it,
people pause and reflect ... When they can’t come to
terms with it, they get mad at us ... The more real a
thing is, the less people want to see it.’ 35
‘The advertising industry has corrupted society ...
One day there will be a Nuremberg trial of
advertisers...I will sit on it, I will be the
prosecution and the public.’ (The Independent,
16/12/92).
‘Today, kids get killed on the road because they
have been convinced by the promise of happiness
suggested by some car makers in their ads. But
33 This and the next two quotes are from the article ‘For and
Against the Benetton Approach,’ Media International,
September 1993.
34 Nonetheless, he was considered ‘a pillar of Benetton’s
success’ by Ciro Tomagnini, analyst with Merill Lynch in
London. Rumors of Toscani’s resignation on 18 April 1994
caused a drop of almost 8% in Benetton’s share price. (The
Wall Street Journal Europe, 20/4/94)
35 In Tamotsu Yagi, ‘United Colors of Benetton: A Global
Vision, ‘, Robundo, 1993.
Copyright © INSEAD - CEDEP
that doesn’t stop them "selling whilst they’re
dying". Right now, I am exhibiting my posters on
a 6,000 square metre surface in Brussels ...
48,000 visitors have been to see these posters,
already seen in the street. Next door, there is an
exhibition of Flemish painters ... they have had
3,200 visitors,’ (Jeunes à Paris, January 1995).
Toscani saw himself not as an advertiser, but as a
reporter-photographer.
‘Benetton gives me the world’s largest museum the street, tens of thousands of posters in a
hundred countries - every artist’s dream ... An
artist must help change things ... I want to show
what people do not want to see ... I am a modern
illiterate. I don’t read any books, almost never
watch television, but I devour dozens of
newspapers every day, dailies only, from all
countries ... Luciano is my patron, my Lorenzo de
Medici.’ (Le Monde, 17/2/95).
The company believed that their most controversial
ads were considered scandalous not because of what
they showed, but because of the Benetton signature.
Claude Torracinta, a Swiss TV journalist commented:
‘... twenty years ago, the picture of a child dying
of hunger provoked a strong reaction ... What
Toscani is telling me ... is that it has become
banal to talk of the world’s suffering [on TV
news] ... this does not affect people anymore. If
you want to touch them, you need a mise en
scène, an escalation in the presentation.’36
In Benetton’s mind, the images they used therefore
had more impact than if they were featured by
public or state organisations. Laura Pollini,
Benetton’s Image and Communications Director,
stressed that their advertisements were intended to
remain ‘open’ to all interpretations - including
negative ones - another reason for not subjecting
them to traditional advertising tests.37 Pascal
Sommariba explained: ‘Ads are usually a totally
closed text. What we thought was interesting was to
have the text disappear totally ... so that people had to
write their own text ... the pictures became rich
through the interface with the public.’
Benetton itself never performed pre-launch tests nor
analysed a campaign’s impact. Toscani explained:
36 Benetton par Toscani.
37 I. G. Evans and S. Riyait (‘Is the Message Being Received?
Benetton Analysed,’ International Journal of Advertising,
1993, 12, 291-301) recommended adding a text to aid the
interpretation as some Benetton ads could yield different
interpretations by different national or cultural groups.
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16
‘Research? We try to do the very opposite ... If you
do research, you get yesterday’s results. If they
had done research 500 years ago, they would
never have discovered America. They would have
found out that the world is flat. You have to have
the courage to make mistakes ... Luciano didn’t
test the market for a taste in coloured sweaters.’
‘The instructions I received didn’t indicate selling
as a target. Therefore I am free to create as I see
fit.’ (Mainichi Shimbun, 11/9/91)
‘You see, Luciano owns the company. No company
run by a manager would accept what I ask, they
would say, ... "We must know before if it will
work." That way they get something mediocre.’
(The Times, 26/1/93)
The visibility and uniqueness of Benetton’s
communications had prompted a number of
advertising agencies and publishing and market
research companies to conduct independent studies of
their effectiveness, very often without Benetton’s
knowledge. These studies evaluated specific
Benetton campaigns (Exhibits 10 and 11) together
with the image of Benetton and other leading brands
across a variety of countries (Exhibits 12 to 15).
Other Communication Activities
The Benettons have long been involved in sponsoring
sports and the Benetton Treviso basketball and rugby
teams and Sisley Volley are among Italy’s top
players in their respective national championships. In
1983, the company inaugurated the Palaverde
complex, a venue for concerts, shows, cultural
displays and sporting events. The 18-hectare Ghirada
Sports Centre, built on the outskirts of Treviso in
1985, welcomes thousands of children every year to
its gyms, basketball and volleyball courts, and rugby
fields. The centre also includes a golf course and
physical rehabilitation unit.
Luciano realised that Formula One Grand Prix racing
attracted a world-wide audience and decided, in
1983, to sponsor the Tyrrell team at a cost of $6
million. In 1984, Benetton sponsored Alfa Romeo
Euroracing, with mixed results. Benetton bought the
Toleman team for L4 billion in 1985 and decided to
compete directly under the Benetton Formula
colours,
‘All the characteristics of Grand Prix racing speed, colour, internationality, excitement, plus
the irresistible combination of high technology
and the human factor - are a perfect expression of
our corporate philosophy. This affiliation has been
Copyright © INSEAD - CEDEP
effective in creating an image for us in some
countries before we had established a commercial
presence.’ 38
Benetton Formula, with the German driver Michael
Schumacher, won the Formula One World
Championship in 1994 and 1995.
In 1992, Benetton launched Colors, a large-format
magazine sold in five bilingual editions in over 100
countries and dedicated to racial integration. Its
editor-in-chief is Toscani and the artistic editor is
Tibor Kalman, an influential New York graphic
designer. It rarely shies away from controversy,
using, for example, computer imagery to show Queen
Elizabeth II of the UK and Arnold Schwarzenegger
with black skin, Pope John Paul II as an Asian or
Ronald Reagan as an AIDS victim. Colors, which
was initially distributed free in Benetton stores, has a
print run of 400,000 and includes paid advertising for
brands such as Kenwood, Philips and Alfa Romeo.
MTV Europe is responsible for the sale of advertising
space in Colors.
In 1993 Toscani set up Inedito, which he described as
a ‘fashion pictures production pool’, in Paris. Inedito
produced quality ready-made fashion magazine
articles featuring 30% Benetton clothes and
accessories and made them available to magazines
world-wide. Each feature, complete with headlines,
captions and full credits, is available in three
languages.
In July 1995, 21 Investimenti, the investment arm of
Edizione Holding, bought a local Milan TV station
and renamed it Sei Milano (Milan 6).
And so, where next? Fabrica, another brainchild of
Toscani, opened near Treviso in the autumn of 1995.
This communications research centre can host up to
50 promising young designers and artists from
around the world. The institution is housed in a
Palladian villa restructured by the Japanese architect
Tadao Ando, the 1995 Pritzker prize winner. Luciano
has said that ‘It [Fabrical] 39 will be a school without
professors and textbooks. We want to see what
creativity produces. Benetton’s future communication
will be Fabrica.’
38 Luciano Benetton ‘Franchising: How Brand Power Works’.
39 In summer 1995, Benetton extended its use of Toscani’s
controversial images to its first global campaign for Benetton
SportsSystem, the sports equipment subsidiary of Edizione.
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17
Exhibit 1
Benetton Group SpA: Financial Highlights 1986-1995 (millions of lire 40)
Italy
Other
Europe
The
Americas
Other
Countries
Consolidated
Italy
Other
Europe
The
Americas
Other
Countries
Consolidated
1986 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share
price/MIB 41
388,872
99,680
470,530
86,160
173,322
16,180
19,558
4,030
1,089,983
206,050
113,029
15,900/104.8
1991 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
790,339
150,374
933,751
151,368
215,409
(12,255)
364,265
35,123
2,303,764
311,757
164,783
10,320/84.7
1987 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
437,101
108,426
609,973
117,071
222,780
8,928
12,050
(2,526)
1,261,077
249,839
130,291
10,460/99.6
1992 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
862,495
170,770
987,603
172,533
237,798
(12,029)
424,745
43,106
2,512,641
356,639
184,709
13,870/70.5
1988 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
641,633
111,937
702,462
115,196
236,372
16,134
35,266
(2,361)
1,475,282
239,673
130,171
10,560/80.3
1993 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
850,609
165,003
1,062,823
204,150
270,021
(22,418)
568,005
74,490
2,751,458
407,926
208,038
26,730/83.5
1989 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
665,530
120,986
672,635
99,462
222,874
(637)
96,460
5,560
1,657,519
225,307
115,412
8,720/99.3
1994 Revenues 42
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
882,744
151,153
1,019,478
175,040
227,302
(19,318)
658,148
93,841
2,787,672
388,740
210,200
12,038/104.1
1990 Revenues
Operating profits
Net Income
Share price/MIB
749,930
147,477
819,825
142,820
220,463
(8,265)
268,830
9,952
2,059,048
266,180
133,271
8,580/100.0
40
41
42
Note: Results for 1995:
Revenues of L 2,940 billion with net income of L 220 billion.
Share price on 31.12.95: 18,890 lire
Exchange rate Lire/US$: 1986=1358; 1987=1169; 1988=1306; 1989=1271; 1990=1130; 1991=1151; 1992=1471; 1993=1704; 1994=1626.
MIB=MIB Index, calculated by the Milan Stock Exchange and based on the average of all stocks traded on that exchange, 1990=100.
On 1 February 1994, Benetton had a capital issue of 10 million shares at L 26,500/share.
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18
Exhibit 2
Clothes Buying Behaviour in Europe, 1994 (A Time Magazine Study)
Methodology: questionnaire sent on 8 March 1994 to a panel of 5500 TIME magazine subscribers in 11 countries (500 per country)
“Where to you usually buy your clothes?”
N=2151 respondents
Boutiques
Department stores
Designer retail
outlets
Catalogues/Direct
mail
Tailor
All other
Can’t say/it varies
B
46
34
18
CH
34
52
20
D
40
56
14
DK
50
50
11
E
46
57
14
COUNTRY
F
I
60
55
43
38
14
15
NL
37
40
24
P
60
36
12
S
37
46
15
UK
10
68
20
EUR
43
47
16
M
40
48
17
5
17
15
4
6
16
2
2
17
3
1
16
4
3
15
2
2
13
2
2
12
1
1
12
SEX
F
52
46
13
<25
51
44
15
25-34
51
43
10
AGE
35-44
46
52
16
45-54
43
46
19
55+
35
47
18
3
7
5
7
25
10
8
18
11
9
13
9
10
2
3
9
1
3
20
4
2
17
1
1
19
3
4
10
2
2
15
3
2
14
4
17
2
2
14
1
19
1
14
2
2
12
5
3
15
UK
8.17
7.71
7.80
7.66
7.36
4.06
4.84
3.09
2.65
2.00
2.20
EUR
8.34
7.85
7.79
7.68
7.06
5.23
4.93
3.27
2.84
2.55
2.44
<25
8.21
8.29
7.59
7.81
7.02
5.59
4.63
3.41
3.80
3.14
2.85
25-34
8.23
8.17
7.75
7.76
7.34
5.46
4.96
3.05
2.84
2.63
2.62
AGE
35-44
8.23
7.99
7.76
7.65
7.18
5.42
4.97
3.23
2.80
2.33
2.42
45-54
8.36
7.74
7.88
7.64
6.87
5.23
4.95
3.33
2.93
2.58
2.47
55+
8.52
7.53
7.80
7.63
6.97
4.89
4.92
3.34
2.53
2.49
2.20
“How important are each of the following factors and features when buying clothes?”
N=2151 respondents
Quality of material
Style
Cut
Colour
Price
Season
Partner’s influence
Country of origin
Prestigious name
Loyalty to designer
Advertising
B
8.34
8.03
7.78
7.52
7.11
5.40
5.43
2.85
2.70
2.57
2.34
CH
8.47
7.81
7.90
7.98
6.87
5.37
4.33
3.13
2.47
2.37
2.27
D
8.29
7.78
7.67
7.59
6.97
4.77
5.10
2.99
2.44
2.09
2.33
DK
8.13
7.18
7.22
7.58
6.73
4.54
4.78
2.99
2.43
1.94
2.47
E
8.31
8.02
7.70
7.28
7.30
5.45
4.47
3.23
3.43
3.23
2.66
COUNTRY
F
I
8.11
8.70
7.97
8.48
7.93
8.16
7.59
8.01
7.20
7.35
5.30
6.07
5.04
4.88
3.73
3.68
2.81
3.17
2.63
2.98
2.15
2.38
NL
8.36
7.74
7.50
7.68
7.05
5.18
5.98
3.17
2.76
2.64
2.58
P
8.60
8.10
8.25
7.84
7.38
6.45
4.43
3.63
3.87
3.33
3.13
S
8.30
7.57
7.72
7.69
6.28
5.00
4.90
3.47
2.44
2.24
2.28
SEX
M
F
8.29
8.51
7.60
8.70
7.58
8.46
7.54
8.14
6.94
7.47
5.17
5.45
5.25
3.83
3.38
2.92
2.94
2.52
2.65
2.20
2.52
2.17
Average scores based on a scale of 1-10, where 1 = not at all important and 10 = extremely important
Code: Europe (EUR), Belgium (B), Switzerland (CH), Germany (D), Denmark (DK), Spain (E), France (F), Italy (I), Netherlands (NL), Portugal (P), Sweden (S), United Kingdom (UK)
Source: Images of Fashion and Fragrance 1994, Time Magazine Opinion Poll
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19
Exhibit 3
Major Investments and Controlling Interests held by Edizione Holding
Benetton Group S.p.A
clothing, 71% owned, turnover L2788bn, net profit
L210bn
Benetton Sportsystem
sporting equipment, 100% owned, turnover L1150bn,
operating profit L31bn:
- Nordica
- Rollerblade
- Prince
- Kästle
- Asolo
- Killer Loop
ski boots, 33% of total turnover
roller skates, 30%
tennis rackets, 20%
skis, 9%
mountain boots, 4%
glasses and snow boards, 4%
GS-Euromercato
supermarkets, 60% owned 43, L4350bn turnover
Autogrill
highway restaurants, 60% owned 44, L1400bn turnover
21 Investimenti
partnership or minority interests in diversified sectors,
75% owned
United Optical
spectacle frames, 100% owned
Divarese
shoes, 85% owned, turnover L60bn, profit L230m
Verdesport
sporting activities, 100% owned
Edizione Property
commercial and non-industrial properties, including
ranches in Patagonia and Texas, 100% owned
Minority Investments
1% of Banca Commerciale Italiana and others
Note: Data reflect the situation in March 1996. Edizione was itself 100% owned by the Benetton family
43
44
Partnership with Del Vecchio Group.
Partnership with Mövenpick Group.
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20
Exhibit 4
Major Benetton Accessories and Licensed Products
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Exhibit 5
Number of Benetton Points-of-Sale, 1982-1994 45
Region
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
Europe
1823
2180
2388
2708
3103
3646
3846
4007
4846
5378
5949
5881
5651
(Italy)
(1165)
(1227)
(1253)
(1279)
(1390)
(1470)
(1505)
(1601)
(1806)
(1969)
(2089)
(2044)
(2031)
41
71
207
432
708
903
1225
1214
1187
1306
1075
1175
1144
(32)
(66)
(190)
(400)
(640)
(n.a.)
(700)
(630)
(650)
(480)
(294)
(429)
(421)
53
45
49
62
85
99
412
651
1299
1204
1109
1458
1443
1917
2296
2644
3202
4102
4995
5483
5872
7332
7888
8133
8514
8238
The Americas
(USA)
Far East and others
Total
45
As of 1990, the figures include “shops-in-shop”, corners and concessions.
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Exhibit 6
Major Benetton Store Layouts, 1995
Mega Benetton
Area
Location
Target
Assortment
> 400 square metres
Main business and residential areas with good purchasing
power
Young and very young, but not only
Most clothing lines and licensed products
Blue Family/Fil di Ferro
Area
Location
> 100 square metres
Main business zones and areas frequented by students with
average purchasing power
Very young clientele
Blue Family line of clothing, accessories and licensed
products
Target
Assortment
Benetton Uomo
(Benetton for Men)
Area
Location
Target
Assortment
Benetton Donna
(Benetton for Women)
Area
Location
Target
Assortment
012
Area
Location
Target
Assortment
Sisley
Area
Location
Target
Assortment
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> 70 square metres
Main business zones and residential areas with good
purchasing power
Youthful informal, classic informal
Benetton’s men’s line of clothing, accessories and licensed
products
> 150 square metres
Main business zones and residential areas with good
purchasing power
Youthful informal, classic informal
Benetton’s women’s line of clothing, accessories and licensed
products
> 100 square metres
Main business zones and residential areas with good
purchasing power
0 to 12 years of age
New-born and children’s clothing, accessories and licensed
products
> 100 square metres
Main business zones and residential areas with average and
above-average purchasing power
Sporty, outdoor and fashion-conscious lifestyles
Sisley line of clothing, accessories and licenses products
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Exhibit 6 (cont’d)
Major Benetton Store Layouts, 1995
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Exhibit 7
A Selection of non-Benetton Advertisements by Oliviero Toscani
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Exhibit 8
Some Benetton’s Actions Against AIDS (1991-94)
1991
In parallel with Coloured Condoms ad, free condoms distributed in Benetton stores in Europe and USA.
$50,000 donation to HIV/AIDS Education Fund high school educational programme in New York
City
1992
Gigantic painted version of Coloured Condoms (26m x 26m) displayed in a Milan square. Donation
made to the hospital to which David Kirby was admitted. Coloured Condoms posters displayed in
Amsterdam during an international conference on AIDS. In South Africa, gigantic Coloured Condom
posters hung outside five hospitals in Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria (at the Medical Research
Council’s request). Coloured Condoms used as part of national prevention campaign sponsored by
AIDES organisation in France. Helped raise $600,000 for AIDS charities in USA.
1992-93
Produced and distributed guides to safe sex in collaboration with a number of associations: Gay
Men’s Health Crisis (USA); Lega Italiana per la Lotta Contro l’AIDS (Italy); Japanese Foundation for
AIDS Prevention; Fundai (Argentina); Gapa (Brazil); Shine and The Guardian (Caribbean); Proyecto
Alerta (Chile); Fundacion Amor (Colombia); Conasida (Mexico); Fundacion Marco Aguayo
(Paraguay); FranSida and National AIDS Programme (Uruguay). In Germany, sponsored the first major
AIDS fund-raising project in 100 night clubs (in collaboration with Deutsche AIDS Stiftungen);
was one of two founding partners of the Deutsche AIDS Hilfe Communications Fund, created during
an international AIDS conference in Berlin.
1993
200 HIV organisations worldwide were contacted to explore possible joint communication projects. In
Brazil, organised a concert for the benefit of a hospital for children with AIDS in Latin America, special
projects (fashion shows, musical and cultural events) were dedicated to AIDS. Sponsored the Films on
Drugs Festival in Vienna, Austria. Sponsored the Gay Film Festival in Turin, Italy. In Portugal, donated
outdoor advertising space to the HIV organisation Abraço. In France, supported survey on the sexual
behaviour of young men with 20 Ans magazine. On Dec 1 (World AIDS day), a 22-metre pink condom
was placed over the Obelisk on Place de la Concorde in Paris (in cooperation with the group Act Up).
Also participated in a major national campaign to promote the use of condoms, in collaboration with
AIDES, the national non-governmental organization. Was the first company to sign the UK Declaration
of Rights for People with HIV and AIDS. Sponsored "Stopping AIDS Together", a fashion show to
help raise funds for AIDS research and care in USA and Canada.
1994
An entire issue of Colors (N° 7) was dedicated to AIDS (over 500,000 copies distributed worldwide).
Sponsored "10th World AIDS Conference" in Yokohama, Japan and organised fund-arising operations.
Sponsored Gay Film Festival in Turin and the Ripensare l’AIDS Convention in Bologna, Italy. Also
donated T-shirts to the organisation SAMAN. In the UK, participated in the "Quilts of Love"
demonstration and developed a pamphlet on AIDS prevention with various organisations (125,000
copies distributed). Co-produced one of ten award-winning films for the SIDATHON day in France.
Organised distribution of free condoms during the Rio carnival in Brazil.
1995
In India, produced and distributed posters and leaflets on AIDS prevention.
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a copyright infringement.
26
Exhibit 9
Some Major National Awards received by Benetton
Year
Country
1984
Netherlands - Avenue Award
1985
France - Banque de l’Union Publicitaire
France - Stratégies Grand Prix (Best Campaigns) and Awards in the Magazine, Out-door and
Textiles/Clothing categories
Netherlands - Avenue Award
Netherlands - Avenue Award
Austria - Kulturamt der Stadt Wien Award
Italy - Confindustria Print Italia and Pubblicità Successo Awards
Netherlands - Avenue Award
UK - Eurobest Awards
Austria - Kulturamt der Stadt Wien Award
Denmark - Årets Guldkrone Award
France - Stratégies Grand Prix (Out-door category)
Italy - Finedit, IGP, Confindustria Print Italia Grand Prix Awards
Netherlands- Avenue Award
Austria - Kulturamt der Stadt Wien Award
France - Art Directors’ Club of Europe Grand Prix
Italy - Art Directors’ Club Award (out-door category) and Confindustria Print Italia Award
Netherlands - Avenue Award
UK - Media and Marketing Europe Award
USA - International Andy Award of Excellence
Austria - Kulturamt der Stadt Wien Award
Finland - Maximedia Special Award (outdoor category)
France - Cannes International Golden Lion Award
Germany - Art Directors’ Club of Europe Award
Italy - Art Directors’ Club Award
Netherlands - Avenue Award
Spain - AEPE Award (out-door category)
Switzerland - Societe Gendrale d’Affichage Grand Prix
UK - Epica and Eurobest Award
USA - International Andy Award of Excellence (magazine and international retail category),
Institute of Outdoor Advertising OBIE Award International Center for Photography (ICP) Jury
Award
1986
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
Europe - FEPE (European Federation of Outdoor Advertising) Award (Best Poster for Italy)
France - Cannes International Golden Lion (outdoor category)
Ireland - Best Out-door Campaign Award
USA - ICP Infinity Award, Institute of Outdoor Advertising’s Fiftieth OBIE Award
Austria - Kulturamt der Stadt Wien Award
Austria - Kulturamt der Stadt Wien Award
France - French Retailers Association’s "Enseigne d’Or" Award
Japan - Art Directors’ Club of Japan Award
Turkey - Kuzguncuk Lions Club Award
USA - Art Directors’ Club of New York Medal
Switzerland - Swiss Federal Department of the Interior Award
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a copyright infringement.
27
Exhibit 10
Ipsos Tests of Benetton Campaigns in France (billboards, Paris and suburbs),
1985-1995
Date of Campaign: 1-20/3/85
Date of Test: 20/9/85
Cost 46: 2,000,000 FF and 4,000,000 FF ($223,000 and $446,000)
Recognition 47
Overall sample
(N=300)
18-34 year olds
(N=150)
Attribution
Confusion
48
49
Liked
Disliked
57
29
3
73
23
63
36
3
73
21
Date of Campaign: 1989
Date of Test: 28/9 to 3/10/89
Cost: 2,396,000 FF ($375,543)
N=301
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards 50
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
75
64
2
79
20
1
75
75
60
68
3
1
77
81
23
17
1
2
81
81
69
77
76
53
1
1
3
83
83
75
16
15
25
1
3
-
83
72
65
43
72
60
58
18
3
2
2
-
81
77
77
60
18
22
20
35
1
1
3
5
Source: Ipsos Publicité, Paris, France
46
47
48
49
50
Estimated cost of the campaign in French Francs (US$). This refers only to billboards and does not include
print.
Respondents were shown a folder containing several ads with the brand name blocked out. As they leafed
through, they were asked which ads they remembered seeing. The recognition score is the % of respondents
remembering having seen (at least one of) the ads listed
For each ad recognised, respondents were asked whether they remembered the name of the brand blocked
out
Percentage of respondents who incorrectly identified the brand
Average score of all other billboard campaigns tested by Ipsos within the same industry and with similar
budgets
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Exhibit 10 (cont’d)
Tests of Benetton Campaigns in France (billboards, Paris and suburbs)
Date of Campaign: 12/3 – 20/3/90
Date of Test: 22/3/90
Cost: 2,319,000 FF ($425,872)
N=301
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
88
75
2
90
8
2
85
91
69
81
2
1
89
91
9
8
3
1
90
92
85
82
83
68
3
94
91
89
6
9
7
3
91
89
81
43
81
74
67
18
2
2
-
92
90
86
59
6
9
11
35
2
1
3
6
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
83
72
2
88
10
2
81
84
68
76
3
1
88
88
9
11
3
1
94
91
75
90
85
58
1
2
2
95
90
94
5
9
6
1
-
82
84
82
43
75
72
64
18
2
2
2
-
89
85
94
59
11
10
6
35
1
4
6
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
83
69
4
70
28
2
79
87
62
77
5
2
74
67
26
30
1
3
93
91
75
90
80
58
1
5
3
82
79
61
17
20
36
1
1
3
87
78
84
43
75
67
63
18
5
1
6
-
74
66
69
59
25
31
27
35
1
3
3
6
Date of Campaign: 3/9 – 16/9/90
Date of Test: 20-24/9/90
Cost: 2,001,000 FF ($367,473)
N=305
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Date of Campaign: 11/3 to 20/3/91
Date of Test: 21/3/91
Cost: 2,176,000 FF ($385,672)
N=301
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
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29
Exhibit 10 (cont’d)
Tests of Benetton Campaigns in France (billboards, Paris and suburbs)
Date of Campaign: 2/9 to 11/9/91
Date of Test: 19/9/91
Cost: 2,440,000 FF ($432,463)
N=302
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
79
72
1
32
66
2
76
83
67
77
1
-
34
30
64
69
2
1
84
80
79
75
77
67
1
1
1
34
38
26
64
62
70
2
3
80
82
75
43
71
78
63
18
1
2
-
44
23
27
59
56
75
71
35
1
3
2
6
Date of Campaign: 2/9 to 11/9/91 and 14/10 to 21/10/91
Date of Test: 24/10/91
Cost: 2,440,000 FF ($432,463) and 1,097,000 FF ($194,431)
N=193
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
3
Incites to
Buy 51
36
Does not
incite to Buy
61
64
59
1
59
38
67
60
60
58
1
-
60
58
38
39
2
3
35
38
61
60
65
67
60
63
65
53
1
65
60
58
29
36
41
6
4
1
41
38
35
59
60
61
67
60
66
43
63
53
62
18
1
-
56
66
48
59
43
30
48
35
1
4
3
6
41
36
21
-
55
60
79
-
Does not
incite to Buy
56
Date of Campaign: 2/9 to 11/9/91 and 14/10 to 21/10/91
Date of Test: 24/10/91
Cost: 2,440,000 FF ($432,463) and 1,097,000 FF ($194,431)
N=193
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
51
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
72
67
1
70
28
2
Incites to
Buy
40
64
80
57
78
1
-
69
71
29
28
2
1
33
48
61
51
86
77
69
82
73
62
1
76
72
68
24
26
31
2
1
43
42
39
55
55
57
67
73
79
43
66
69
69
18
1
-
64
74
76
59
34
25
21
35
1
1
3
6
38
47
31
-
56
52
66
-
The % of respondents who said that the campaign has created in them a positive or negative desire to buy
the product. Ipsos reports the following standards for incitation to buy: 27% positive “desire to buy” when
ad liking is below 45%, 39% positive when liking is between 45% and 60%, 52% positive when liking is
above 60%
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Exhibit 10 (cont’d)
Tests of Benetton Campaigns in France (billboards, Paris and suburbs)
Date of Campaign: 18/3 to 29/3/92
Date of Test: 2/4/92
Cost: 2,125,000 FF ($401,413)
N=301
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
3
Incites to
Buy
19
Does not
incite to Buy
78
79
72
-
39
58
81
78
70
74
1
-
42
36
54
61
4
3
19
18
79
76
83
85
74
81
81
63
1
44
42
36
51
54
61
5
4
3
26
23
14
73
75
81
76
82
80
43
71
74
71
18
1
-
37
37
45
59
61
59
50
35
2
4
5
6
16
19
23
79
78
76
Date of Campaign: 22/9 to 29/9/92 and 19/10 to 26/10/92
Date of Test: 5/11/92
Cost: 2,000,000 and 2,527,000 FF ($377,800 and $477,350)
N=301
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
77
73
1
42
54
4
77
76
73
74
1
-
52
33
42
65
6
2
84
84
70
83
82
65
1
44
42
42
55
56
52
1
2
6
80
76
75
43
78
71
69
18
1
1
-
40
39
49
65
57
55
48
30
3
6
3
5
Recognition
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
81
77
2
23
70
7
78
85
72
81
3
1
22
24
70
70
8
6
86
82
81
84
79
75
1
3
21
22
24
69
71
68
10
7
7
86
82
69
44
85
75
60
21
1
4
-
20
25
28
61
75
68
62
31
6
7
10
8
Date of Campaign: 14/9 to 21/9/93
Date of Test: 23/9/93
Cost: 2,200,000 FF ($388,473)
N=301
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
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31
Exhibit 10 (cont’d)
Tests of Benetton Campaigns in France (billboards, Paris and suburbs)
Date of Campaign: 22/2 to 28/2/94
Date of Test: 3/3/1994
Cost: 1,754,000 FF ($315,900)
N=302
Recogniti
on
Attribution
Confus
ion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
Incites to
Buy
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
60
55
1
27
71
2
14
Does not
incite to
Buy
86
63
56
56
54
1
-
28
27
71
70
1
3
14
15
86
85
66
54
64
46
1
28
27
72
70
1
3
14
15
86
85
65
53
63
44
64
50
52
20
1
1
-
25
31
25
61
75
67
72
31
1
2
3
8
9
17
16
91
83
84
Date of Campaign: 18/10 to 31/10/94
Date of Test: 3/11/94
Cost: 3,400,000 FF ($612,400)
N=300
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Recogniti
on
86
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
80
1
59
32
9
86
86
80
81
1
2
58
60
28
35
13
5
93
79
90
70
1
2
66
52
26
37
7
11
87
86
84
44
81
80
79
20
1
2
-
61
58
57
61
29
35
29
31
10
6
14
8
Date of Campaign: 21/2 to 6/3/95
Date of Test: 9/3/95
Cost: 3,600,000 FF ($720,000)
N=301
Overall sample
Gender
Men
Women
Age group
18-24
25-34
35-55
Income group
Higher
Medium
Lower
Ipsos standards
Recogniti
on
82
Attribution
Confusion
Liked
Disliked
Indifferent
78
1
37
60
4
83
81
77
79
1
-
37
36
58
62
5
2
86
79
85
72
1
42
31
55
65
3
4
80
84
82
47
75
83
74
23
2
-
35
38
35
63
62
59
58
30
3
3
7
7
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a copyright infringement.
32
Exhibit 11
Test of Benetton Billboard Campaign in Switzerland, 1991 (a Société Générale d’Affichage study)
Campaign tested: “Giusy, the new-born baby” – Date of test: 9-12 August, 1991
Methodology: This SGA study tested the impact of 10 new outdoor advertising campaigns prior to their national launch in Switzerland. These campaigns were displayed in 2
metropolitan areas in greater Lausanne and Bern during a two-week period (29 July – 11 August, 1991) on 30 and 38 “B12” billboards respectively. The test campaigns
included Benetton’s “new-born baby” campaign as well as 9 other campaigns. The test occurred 7 weeks prior to the national launch in Switzerland of the “new-born baby”
campaign. The 10 test campaigns a) had not appeared anywhere previously; b) were only displayed on “B12” billboards, and c) were the only campaigns run by these brands
for 2 weeks prior to and after the test display period. The sample was representative of all persons aged 15 to 74 living in the greater Lausanne and Bern areas.
A. Unaided Recall 52
Lausanne sample (n=401)
Brands
Recall
%
1 Benetton 55
18.0
2 Marlboro
7.5
3 Stop Aids
5.7
4 Camel
4.7
5 SBB
3.7
6 McDonald’s
3.0
7 Clin d’oeil2
2.7
8 700th Anniversary
2.7
9 AMAG/VW
2.7
10 Comptoir Suisse2
2.5
B. Recognition 53 and Company/Product Familiarity 54 for all 10 Test
Campaigns
Bern sample (n=402)
Brands
Recall
%
1 Benetton2
33.8
2 Stop Aids
8.0
3 SBB
3.5
4 Stimorol
2.5
5 Migros
2.5
6 Der Bund
2.2
7 700th Anniversary
2.2
8 Circus Knie
2.0
9 Levi Jeans
1.7
10 Marlboro
1.7
Source: “Billboards B12”, Société Générale d’Affichage (SGA), Switzerland,
1992 and Martial Pasquier “Conscience et Comportement”, Arbeitspapier Nr 21,
Institut für Marketing and Unternehmungsführung, Universität Bern, 1994
52
53
54
55
56
Brands
Benetton
Heine
Providentia
Stimorol
SGA
Clin d’Oeil 56
Comptoir
Suisse5
L’Hebdo5
Der Bund5
Wartman5
Lausanne Sample
Recognition
Familiarity
Seen for
Perhaps
sure
%
%
%
55.1
12.2
90.3
28.2
14.5
38.7
20.7
18.0
70.1
34.9
23.4
91.8
25.9
15.2
46.4
40.1
17.0
75.1
26.2
15.5
92.8
51.1
20.2
Bern Sample
Recognition
Seen for
Perhaps Familiarity
sure
%
%
%
60.4
4.7
87.8
39.8
11.7
51.2
27.1
9.7
57.2
45.3
10.4
92.0
25.9
10.0
40.5
90.3
68.9
39.1
9.7
11.2
95.3
85.8
Respondents were asked: “Can you spontaneously give examples of posters or billboards which you have seen during the last 2 weeks?”
Respondents were asked: “Here are photos of billboards. Are there any among them which you remember having seen during the past two weeks? Please tell us which
ones you have seen ‘for sure’, ‘perhaps’ or ‘not at all’.”
Respondents were asked: “For each billboard, please say if the product or the company is familiar to you”.
One of the 10 test campaigns.
Ad displayed only in French-speaking Lausanne or German-speaking Bern.
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Exhibit 11 (cont’d)
C. Variation of Benetton Total Recognition 57 by Sex and Age
Lausanne Sample
(%)
65.0
69.5
78.9
67.2
54.8
Men
Women
15-29
30-49
50-74
Bern Sample
(%)
60.1
69.9
68.2
67.4
58.2
D. Liking / Disliking 58 of Benetton Campaign
LAUSANNE Sample
Overall
Men
Women
15-29
30-44
45-74
57
58
59
Dislike
(%)
58
58
59
52
59
65
Like
(%)
15
17
15
24
15
9
BERN Sample
Dislike
(%)
62
63
64
55
68
68
Like
(%)
12
11
12
14
12
10
A
23
23
23
19
26
18
LAUSANNE Sample
BERN Sample
REASONS FOR DISLIKING 59
(%)
B
C
A
B
39
54
32
44
34
51
25
45
43
57
37
42
33
51
32
44
37
56
37
49
44
56
27
39
C
38
40
35
39
32
41
Total recognition: “seen for sure” + “seen perhaps”
Respondents were asked to indicate whether they liked or disliked the ad using a 6-point scale (1=does not like at all; 6=likes a lot). Here, dislike scores correspond to 12 answers and like scores correspond to 4-6 answers
People with a negative reaction were asked to select one or more of the following reasons for their dislike. A : use of the subject for commercial purposes; B : the image
is shocking; C : the relationship between the subject and the brand
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34
Exhibit 12
Awareness, Liking and Usage of Some Fashion Brands in Five European Countries, 1990
(A Euroka Project – Brigitte Magazine Germany)
Methodology: “omnibus” surveys in West Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain involving a random sample of 2,000 women, 14-64 years old, April-May 1990
Germany
CLOTHING
BRANDS
Benetton
Armani
Esprit
Jil Sander
Triumph
Schiesser
Awareness %
68
28
73
68
91
93
Liking
%
42
11
46
37
60
64
France
Usage
%
28
4
33
14
53
56
Awareness %
73
6
3
5
49
2
Liking
%
30
1
1
1
6
0
G. Britain
Usage
%
26
0
1
0
8
0
Awareness %
61
18
20
2
43
2
Liking
%
26
6
4
0
10
0
Italy
Usage
%
14
2
1
0
6
0
Awareness %
92
81
8
12
31
3
Liking
%
65
41
2
3
10
1
Spain
Usage
%
57
28
1
1
10
1
Awareness %
53
9
6
2
30
2
Liking
%
21
2
0
0
7
0
Usage
%
17
1
0
0
12
0
Benetton Awareness (Aided), Liking and Usage by Age Group
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Exhibit 13
Image of Benetton and some other clothing brands in France, 1994
(A SOFRES Survey)
Evocation 61
1000
1000
1000
1000
1000
1000
Aided
Awareness 60
969
961
871
814
298
263
1000
825
Brands
CHANEL
LACOSTE
BENETTON
CHEVIGNON
ARMANI
BOSS
Average 300
Brands
Conviction 63
Refusal 64
Influence 65
782
798
661
607
167
145
Perceived
Quality 62
863
865
574
582
157
148
Usage 67
476
397
369
358
126
119
Influence
Ratio 66
1.11
1.68
0.49
0.42
0.24
0.25
250
249
122
106
24
24
226
148
247
252
102
95
591
539
168
223
391
0.75
254
130
255
106
80
17
16
Basis: Total population rescaled to 1000
Source: SOFRES, France. Data extracted from “SOFRES Megabrand System 1994” database. The Megabrand system covers 300 international brands across a variety of
goods and services with a representative national sample of 3000 French respondents.
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
Aided awareness: number of individuals who indicate that they “know the brand from amongst those presented, if only by name”.
Number of individuals for whom this brand evokes “many things”, “some things” or “a few things” (as opposed to “nothing”).
Number of individuals for whom the brand is the “best available quality” or “better than others” as opposed to “inferior to others” or “worst quality available”.
Number of individuals who state they “would definitely choose” this brand (as opposed to “probably”, “probably not”, “certainly not”.)
Number of individuals who state hey “would definitely not choose this brand”
Number of individuals who are not indifferent to this brand (influence = conviction + refusal)
Influence ratio = conviction/refusal.
Number of individuals who are “almost only” this brand, or “more than any other”, as opposed to “less than others” or “almost never”.
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Exhibit 14
Images of some leading fashion companies in Europe, 1994
(A Time Magazine Study)
Methodology: questionnaire sent on 18 March 1994 to a panel of 5500 TIME magazine subscribers in 11
countries (500 per country). Respondents were presented with a list of 40 fashion and/or fragrance houses and
asked their perceptions of these companies. Only the top 10 fashion companies are shown in this exhibit.
“Overall familiarity with the company”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
N=2151 respondents
Benetton
Christian Dior
Lacoste
Burberrys
Yves Saint Laurent
Chanel
Giorgio Armani
Hugo Boss
Karl Lagerfeld
Hermès
Country
I
F
F
UK
F
F
I
D
F
F
EUR
%
B
%
CH
%
D
%
DK
%
E
%
F
%
I
%
NL
%
P
%
S
%
UK
%
80
74
72
72
70
68
56
49
47
47
84
78
73
70
76
65
53
40
46
51
83
80
75
73
70
71
50
59
48
61
87
73
80
61
68
61
62
76
67
37
64
64
67
79
59
59
35
57
46
21
87
81
76
85
78
66
73
35
39
55
87
89
88
74
86
88
40
39
60
85
89
77
86
73
79
80
93
38
33
61
69
64
55
62
59
63
32
43
43
31
90
83
81
76
76
82
67
73
47
40
67
67
71
72
63
55
58
49
55
33
69
58
44
65
58
63
49
32
36
39
EUR
%
B
%
CH
%
D
%
DK
%
E
%
F
%
I
%
NL
%
P
%
S
%
UK
%
62
56
49
46
41
38
35
31
26
24
73
66
55
50
39
49
41
30
26
26
69
64
51
36
41
40
46
30
24
31
61
49
39
53
30
57
31
36
30
12
55
43
32
26
33
29
14
29
26
9
58
61
54
63
58
30
47
40
21
32
79
75
79
28
39
48
62
30
14
45
63
59
52
73
46
17
37
31
10
26
47
38
35
24
29
31
24
29
26
21
66
63
66
56
49
40
30
47
32
35
56
55
35
42
36
39
20
25
31
18
60
50
41
52
54
36
32
18
49
12
20
15
11
16
18
33
10
16
18
40
18
22
EUR
%
B
%
CH
%
D
%
DK
%
E
%
F
%
I
%
NL
%
P
%
S
%
UK
%
54
34
26
25
24
24
23
23
23
22
47
26
24
16
23
22
16
22
18
20
58
30
28
44
28
17
17
18
21
24
54
33
48
13
17
22
23
16
17
17
64
25
32
26
17
17
13
26
17
5
60
47
19
18
29
26
29
24
33
29
60
50
24
18
37
42
21
24
34
45
46
38
15
38
23
26
44
36
27
24
43
28
16
12
24
15
13
14
16
15
50
45
43
26
30
35
31
26
27
23
53
33
23
11
16
17
23
17
13
15
63
15
15
56
20
28
25
29
26
19
“Prestigious image”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
…..
15
N=2151 respondents
Christian Dior
Yves Saint Laurent
Chanel
Giorgio Armani
Burberrys
Karl Lagerfeld
Hermès
Lacoste
Calvin Klein
Nina Ricci
Country
F
F
F
I
UK
F
F
F
US
F
Benetton
I
“Reputation for Quality”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
N=2151 respondents
Burberrys
Lacoste
Hugo Boss
Aquascutum
Chanel
Yves Saint Laurent
Giorgio Armani
Benetton
Christian Dior
Hermès
Country
UK
F
D
UK
F
F
I
I
F
F
Code: Europe (EUR), Belgium (B), Switzerland (CH), Germany (D), Denmark (DK), Spain (E), France (F), Italy (I), Netherlands (NL),
Portugal (P), Sweden (S), United Kingdom (UK)
Source: Images of Fashion and Fragrance 1994, Time Magazine Opinion Poll
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Exhibit 14 (cont’d)
“Is more high fashion”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
N=2151 respondents
Christian Dior
Karl Lagerfeld
Giorgio Armani
Yves Saint Laurent
Calvin Klein
Chanel
Jean-Paul Gaultier
Kenzo
Benetton
Nina Ricci
Country
F
F
I
F
US
F
F
F
I
F
EUR
%
B
%
CH
%
D
%
DK
%
E
%
F
%
I
%
NL
%
P
%
S
%
UK
%
42
30
30
30
25
21
19
15
15
11
41
38
36
30
19
25
25
17
11
10
46
33
30
27
31
22
23
24
16
9
38
37
36
33
28
16
16
21
25
7
34
22
18
29
20
16
9
11
16
3
42
29
42
31
20
25
18
9
13
17
61
41
21
45
20
37
32
25
9
23
38
24
42
28
24
30
19
16
12
14
41
23
14
32
23
22
14
12
11
3
40
26
28
25
27
22
24
12
11
15
32
20
28
16
16
9
13
13
15
9
48
33
30
35
44
22
20
2
27
6
EUR
%
B
%
CH
%
D
%
DK
%
E
%
F
%
I
%
NL
%
P
%
S
%
UK
%
17
12
12
10
9
9
8
6
6
6
9
8
15
11
7
11
5
3
3
3
19
6
10
6
11
5
5
4
11
9
17
14
10
20
9
9
6
5
5
6
15
8
9
12
9
9
4
8
4
3
22
18
20
8
10
12
11
9
2
7
16
7
16
9
5
13
14
4
3
8
15
21
17
3
10
15
7
4
7
10
18
5
9
6
8
6
5
8
4
9
20
10
14
20
11
10
9
9
9
4
11
14
7
9
8
1
8
3
1
5
25
16
4
4
12
7
10
12
15
4
EUR
%
B
%
CH
%
D
%
DK
%
E
%
F
%
I
%
NL
%
P
%
S
%
UK
%
38
27
26
18
16
14
13
12
12
11
35
31
24
22
11
11
17
7
11
8
40
37
26
23
16
7
15
21
11
8
45
28
25
37
15
16
29
9
15
11
30
23
23
15
12
8
8
10
10
6
37
37
39
15
22
20
10
8
11
18
44
40
30
20
15
13
37
9
7
23
58
29
21
17
17
30
9
18
8
14
33
11
17
6
13
3
2
5
15
4
44
34
28
22
22
16
7
13
14
13
24
18
24
13
11
15
9
2
6
9
24
13
27
10
16
19
3
27
19
9
“Caters for my style”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
N=2151 respondents
Burberrys
Giorgio Armani
Lacoste
Hugo Boss
Ralph Lauren
Benetton
Yves Saint Laurent
Calvin Klein
Aquascutum
Chanel
Country
UK
I
F
D
US
I
F
US
UK
F
“Would by for day/work wear”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
N=2151 respondents
Benetton
Lacoste
Burberrys
Hugo Boss
Ralph Lauren
Giorgio Armani
Daniel Hechter
Aquascutum
Calvin Klein
Yves Saint Laurent
Country
I
F
UK
D
US
I
F
UK
US
F
Code: Europe (EUR), Belgium (B), Switzerland (CH), Germany (D), Denmark (DK), Spain (E), France (F), Italy (I), Netherlands (NL),
Portugal (P), Sweden (S), United Kingdom (UK)
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Exhibit 15 A
Overall Awareness and Use of Some Clothing Brands in 21 Countries, 1994
(A Young & Rubicam Brand AssetTM Valuator Study)
Benetton
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Czech Rep
France
Germany
Hungary
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
P.R.China
Poland
Russia
S.Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Thailand
UK
US
Chanel
Dior
Esprit
Gap
Armani
Lacoste
YSL
Aware 68
Use 69
Aware
Use
Aware
Use
Aware
Use
Aware
Use
Aware
Use
Aware
Use
Aware
Use
59
54
61
69
91
71
73
94
75
66
74
19
40
17
25
73
74
89
55
88
53
2/81
3/81
2/78
1/77
8/53
8/51
3/87
21/35
3/64
8/74
1/53
2/95
0/81
0/99
3/88
9/48
0/62
11/50
3/18
2/65
1/30
93
51
97
92
98
80
78
85
98
90
93
15
69
53
29
85
93
91
51
96
90
4/84
1/93
11/69
3/38
16/64
5/66
3/90
15/67
21/63
13/63
10/70
1/97
2/50
4/91
3/91
6/69
1/65
14/56
3/25
7/78
11/51
94
42
89
91
98
83
75
83
93
79
86
23
58
67
49
86
92
93
64
94
86
11/73
4/86
2/89
6/36
14/65
3/70
7/87
13/68
27/50
17/59
5/73
1/98
4/52
4/91
13/72
7/65
1/61
14/63
5/37
7/77
15/51
87
30
83
32
21
68
31
25
47
73
66
6
13
5
56
28
54
69
14
35
76
7/63
0/98
22/58
1/45
1/96
8/54
2/95
1/97
3/93
5/86
3/41
0/99
0/59
1/99
3/89
1/79
1/74
11/55
1/6
1/93
16/58
12
9
57
23
25
19
13
16
28
22
11
12
9
11
25
12
14
19
37
27
77
1/93
0/98
5/79
1/70
2/91
1/79
1/95
1/96
1/90
4/86
0/10
0/99
0/76
1/98
1/89
2/77
1/91
2/92
2/12
1/87
12/24
43
20
60
22
37
44
35
93
75
33
36
7
31
22
12
55
58
65
23
70
61
2/95
1/97
2/92
0/47
3/91
4/72
2/93
25/49
6/85
7/82
3/31
0/100
2/57
1/98
1/97
5/72
1/74
12/68
0/12
5/85
5/51
74
29
41
51
97
66
60
86
88
60
78
9
27
22
29
87
89
89
49
55
51
4/65
6/85
2/78
1/57
24/30
4/54
4/67
19/37
6/36
7/57
2/54
0/99
1/70
0/93
2/86
18/36
18/42
10/50
6/20
2/78
2/23
82
34
84
37
99
63
45
73
93
47
78
13
32
12
22
59
83
87
39
87
70
16/76
5/88
15/64
2/44
19/58
2/71
4/91
14/70
29/49
14/69
6/64
1/98
2/55
1/98
5/88
7/66
2/63
14/61
2/17
8/77
12/51
The data base consists of a survey of 30,000 consumers in 21 countries across 6,000 global and local brands and 120 product categories
Source: A Young & Rubicam Europe, Brand AssetTM Valuator Study, 1994
68
69
Awareness: respondents were asked to rate on a 7-point scale (1=never heard of, 7=extremely familiar) their “overall awareness of the brand as well as their
understanding of what kind of product or service the brand represents”. The figures correspond to the % of respondents answering 2 or above.
First figure: % of respondents indicating that they “use or buy regularly/often”; 2nd figure: % of respondents indicating that they have “never used or bought”.
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a copyright infringement.
39
Exhibit 15 B
A Perceptual Map of Benetton, Esprit, The Gap and Lacoste in 21 Countries
(A Young & Rubicam Europe, Brand AssetTM Valuator Study)
Method: Correspondence analysis of respondents’ ratings of the brand on 24 image attributes.
How to read the map: the further away a country is plotted from an attribute, the less the people in this country
associate that attribute with the brand. Countries that are close to each other tend to have a similar perception of
the brand. Two dimensional maps are presented. The % of variance explained by the third dimension is 13.1%
for Benetton, 14.6% for Esprit, 12.9% for The Gap, 11.2% for Lacoste.
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a copyright infringement.
40
Exhibit 15 B (cont’d)
A Perceptual Map of Benetton, Esprit, The Gap and Lacoste in 21 Countries
(A Young & Rubicam Europe, Brand AssetTM Valuator Study)
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a copyright infringement.
41
Exhibit 15 C
The Benetton Brand Power Grid across 21 Countries
Methodology: The Power Grid plots respondent’s perceptions of a brand on two dimensions: Brand Vitality and
Brand Stature. Brand Vitality is a combination of Differentiation and Relevance while Brand Stature combines
Esteem and Familiarity. Differentiation: The extent to which the brand is perceived to be “Distinctive”,
“Unique” and “Different”; Relevance: The extent to which respondents perceive the brand to be “appropriate [for
them] personally”; Esteem: The extent to which respondents “think or feel highly about the brand” or consider it
to be “best brand in its category”; Familiarity: Overall awareness of the brand as well as understanding what
kind of product or service the brand represents.
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42