Social awareness advertisements - Some years before, the Benetton Group S.p.A. developed the United Colors of Benetton Campaign, originally to draw attention to prejudice against black people. The campaign broadened over time to include other

Question

prejudices and consist of a series of shocking pictures published in unexpected venues. For example, there were pictures of a nun kissing a priest, a bombed car in a street, a white dog kissing a black lamb, an AIDS activist on his death bed in front of a picture of a crucified Christ, and a white girl portrayed with an angelic halo and a black boy with hair like horns. Is the Virgin campaign substantively different that the Benetton campaign of 1992?

Answer 1

Some advertisements not only market products but they also remind all of us of our ethnic diversity. The United Colors of Benetton drew attention to ethnic and cultural differences. There were not exploitive; they were not marketing to the vulnerable; and they were not ethically questionable. The Virgin Mobile advertising campaign, on the other hand, was exploitive of teenagers. They were encouraging teenagers to conduct a striptease for the voyeuristic gratification of others. A striptease tends to dehumanize the participant and injures the dignity of the stripper. Virgin was also marketing to the vulnerable. The young are cognitively vulnerable because they have not yet reached their morally maturity. Exploitive advertisements that are marketed to the cognitively vulnerable are considered just as unethical as advertisements that are marketed to the physically vulnerable (medical remedies to those with allergies) or to the mentally vulnerable (children, or those grieving or serious ill).