United colors of Benetton

Figure 1 AIDS – Davis Kirby 1992. Photo: Courtesy of the United Colors of Benetton website

The United Colors of Benetton are a hugely successfully Italian based clothing company that always aim to make a statement and raise awareness in their advertisement campaigns. In 1992 they used this photograph of David Kirby dying of HIV AIDS(see figure 1). Its aim: to raise awareness of AIDS worldwide, and to get people talking about a topic that still today remains a taboo matter in many countries.

Though what is wrong with this image? Well German Appeal courts got the advertisement banned all together in Germany, having claimed that,

“Benetton is trying, through its depiction of the intense suffering of living things, to evoke a feeling of compassion on the part of the consumer, and to suggest that it is sympathetic," the court wrote. "In this way, Benetton tries to enhance its name and its business in the mind of the consumer."

Also adding that the advertisement, “strips HIV-positive people of their dignity.”

It is difficult determine whether or not the company is sincere about their reasons behind the campaign, or if they are in fact exploiting someone else’s pain for the benefit of company profit. Though the answer is impossible to know. What is definite though is that some moments are too sensitive to expose, such as this one. To think if you knew someone that was dying or had died of AIDS would you really want advertisements like this posted all over the world? Showing an image of a weak and frail person who has some what lost their dignity and the ability to live. I am sure that is not how people want to remember their loved ones, nor be remembered. Rather figure_ can be viewed as a form of shock tactic,an advertisement that digs deep for cheap emotional manipulation, rather than a source of truth and new awareness.