Over the years, advertising has become the single largest source of visual imagery in our society. No matter where we look, we see advertisements trying to sell us everything from food to cars. We often see images of beautiful people enticing us to spend our money on products we think we need, hoping that by purchasing the product we too will reap the benefits of owning it. Not long ago however, an Italian clothing designer named Luciano Benetton changed the face of advertising forever by employing Oliviero Toscani as chief of advertising at Benetton. Instead of showing Benetton's products in its advertisements, they have chosen to show images related to important world issues in an apparent attempt to raise awareness. In this essay, I shall discuss the social and cultural implications of Benetton's advertisements to discover why they have become so criticised and whether or not they are beneficial to society today.
             It was in 1989 that Benetton became the first company to eliminate pictures of its products from its advertisements. In their place, Benetton uses powerful images of AIDS victims, racism, war and now even death row inmates. In the same year, the trademark "United Colours of Benetton" was officially adopted. The campaign trademark and philosophy is the result of the combined efforts of company president Luciano Benetton and photographer Oliviero Toscani. Benetton and Toscani's personal ideas and perspectives on advertising have since become very similar with Benetton's corporate image. Toscani is in fact "only interested in the world and people." Toscani, who has a long history in dealing with art, was given total control over Benetton's advertisements. His decision to completely remove the product from the advertisements stems directly from his beliefs about the problems of contemporary advertising. He believes that "the advertising industry has corrupted society." However, despite claims from both men that profit was ...