Benetton Group

Benetton Group S.p.A. is a fashion company founded in Ponzano Veneto, Italy. Its name is due to the family name of its creators, who established it in 1965. It was listed on the Italian Stock Exchange.

The story began in 1955 when Luciano Benetton, the eldest of four children, was only 20 years old and working as a newspaper seller in Treviso. He realized that people wanted colors in their lives and especially in his clothes. His sister made sweaters so he sold a younger brother's bicycle so he could buy the first second-hand knitting machine so the sweaters would be made faster, and he began marketing a small collection of sweaters to local stores in the area. Veneto area. The positive reaction to his designs was just the beginning of a solid start. Shortly after, he asked his sister and his two younger brothers, Gilberto and Carlo, to join the business.

In 1966, the Benettons opened their first store in Belluno and in 1969 in Paris, with Luciano as president, his brother Gilberto in charge of administration, his younger brother Carlo in charge of production, and Giuliana as head designer.

Its main business is clothing with the casual (informal) line "United Colors of Benetton", "Sisley" more couture-oriented, "Playlife" clothes for all occasions.

Its products include clothing for women, men, children and underwear. They recently expanded into the business of perfumes and personal care items, home goods such as kitchen accessories and baby products.

Advertising

In the 1990s Benetton was known in the United States for producing a series of controversial, sometimes offensive, long-form advertisements, which have caused a number of media critics to accuse the company of deliberately creating controversy to sell their products. This advertising campaign originated when photographer Oliviero Toscani was granted "red letter" by the Benetton administration. The ads titled "United Colors of Benetton" They included images that apparently did not relate at all to the clothing sold by the company, such as scenes of people dying of AIDS, panicked crowds jumping from a sinking ship, a newborn baby that had not been washed, full of blood, and one sentenced to death; Just as images of groups of people of various ethnicities predominate, emphasizing the contrast between white and black people, but at the same time showing that we are all equal. The only advertising in these photographs is the Benetton logo.

His most recent campaign was in 2011 called Unhate so that there is less hate in the world. The controversial images of him show, for example, the former president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez (deceased) kissing with the president of the United States Barack Obama.

Factory

"Factory" is the center of the Benetton Group dedicated to communication research, created in 1994 from the cultural heritage of the Group, with headquarters in Treviso, in the architectural complex restored and expanded by Tadao Andō. The challenge of Fabrica is innovation and internationality: a way of combining culture and industry through communication, which no longer chooses only traditional advertising forms, but rather spreads “industrial culture”, the “intelligence” of the company with the use of other media: design, music, cinema, photography, editorial publications and the Internet. Fabrica decided to bet on the latent creativity of young artist-experimenters from all over the world, invited after an exhaustive selection to develop specific communication projects under the artistic direction of experts from different sectors. The Colors magazine publication is also part of Fabrica's activities. The magazine is financed by the Benetton Group in three bilingual editions: English with Italian, French or Spanish. In 2011, Benetton launched an advertising campaign in the name of the fight against hate using a photomontage of Pope Benedict XVI kissing Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed el-TayebEl, the same with President Obama kissing the Chinese Hu Jintao and the Venezuelan on the mouth. Hugo Chavez.

Sports

The Benetton company sponsored various Formula 1 teams in the early 1980s. It then competed between 1986 and 2001 with its own team, Benetton Formula, with which Michael Schumacher achieved two championship titles.

The company has also owned sports teams in Treviso. The Benetton Rugby Treviso rugby club has been in the family since 1979. After dominating the Italian championship, it joined the Pro12 in 2010, where it plays against teams from Ireland, Wales and Scotland. They have also played in most editions of the Heineken Cup, although without advancing from the group stage.

Treviso Basket was owned by the Benetton family between 1982 and 2012, achieving five Italian basketball championships and two appearances in the Euroleague finals. Sisley Volley won the Italian volleyball championship nine times and the European Champions League four times between 1987 and 2012.

Headquarters

The headquarters of the Benetton Group is Villa Minelli, located in Ponzano Veneto, in the province of Treviso. Villa Minelli is a group of buildings from the 16th century of great historical and cultural interest. It was purchased in 1969 and the restoration and modernization was entrusted to the architects Afra and Tobia Scarpa. The adaptation and remodeling works took a total of more than fifteen years. Since the mid-eighties, Villa Minelli has become the Group's headquarters and the operational center of all its strategic functions.

Reviews

Benetton was denounced by Mapuche organizations for usurpation of ancestral lands in Argentine Patagonia.

The Mapuche Community of Santa Rosa-Leleque, in southern Argentina, has filed a criminal complaint against the Italian brand for land usurpation. Benetton is the largest landowner in Argentina with more than 970,000 hectares of land that reaches Patagonia, where they produce 10% of their wool production.

PETA has launched a protest campaign against Benetton due to its use of Australian wool in its clothing. This, due to the controversy in the process of obtaining wool.