BLOOD, SWEATERS AND SEARS

Oliviero Toscani with one of his controversial adverts
The death penalty has been abolished across most of the western world but in the United States of America the number of criminals who are put to death has risen dramatically over the past ten years. During the summer of 1999, top Italian advertising photographer, Oliviero Toscani, visited a number of American prisons in order to start a campaign which would highlight this and also to reflect his own personal horror at what he saw.

Toscani made his name with his controversial advertisements, particularly for Benetton. He had been in sole control of the company's image for 18 years. The relationship started in the early 80s when self-made millionaire Luciano Benetton, was looking for someone to create the right image to make his successful knitwear company into a world leader.
Toscani's United Colors of Benetton campaign was a great success. But he was daring and iconoclastic, and soon moved from images of people in the company's multi-coloured sweaters, to more notorious images, such as snogging nuns and priests, and copulating horses. They outraged the establishment and caused offence to many different cultures. As the company went from strength to strength, Luciano Benetton and Toscani became great friends, and with the increasing publicity about the controversial advertising campaigns, Benetton became one of the five most recognised brands in the world.
Luciano Benetton

Toscani continued to bring even less comfortable subject matter into Benetton's adverts included images of HIV positive models, war cemeteries, clothes from a dead Croatian soldier and a dying Aids victims. Main newspapers in countries around the world refused to print some of his images. He was accused by some of making money out of the blood of war victims. Toscani was not worried, he says, "provocation is a good word...it takes somebody and (makes them) see something from another perspective".


Oliviero Toscani with one of the death-row adverts
There was one more issue Toscani wanted to highlight - the plight of those on America's death row. He decided to produce a video and booklet to document the stories and faces of the prisoners and avowed to "give a human face" to those awaiting execution. He got access to the prisoners via a top American civil rights lawyer and spent several months visiting prisons and speaking to the inmates.

At the same time, Benetton was hoping to launch a major new initiative. The American market is very important to the company. It once had 700 shops across the States but many of these had closed, and by 1999, there was only 200 stores. Carlo Tunioli of Benetton USA, in an attempt to turn round the decline, made a multi-million dollar agreement with Sears, one of the top US department chain stores, to put Benetton outlets in their stores across the country.

In January 2000, Toscani thought the video and booklet wasn't enough and decided to launch a poster campaign using the images from death row.

Families of the victims of murderers portrayed in the photos now led a passionate campaign against Benetton and Sears. They picketed stores, sent letters of protest and cut up their Sears store cards. Benetton thought, like many of their previous campaigns, the reaction would fizzle out but the reaction by the public in the United States became intense, and Sears became more and more worried. So much so that on 16 February 2000, the deal between Sears and Benetton collapsed.
Emory and Donata Nelson, who's son was murdered by one of the prisoners used in the campaign

Three months later, the 18-year partnership between Benetton and Toscani ended.

The programme was first broadcast in January 2001.
(this is copyright the bbc, but reproduced for educational purposes here in case of internet failure or if the original is taken down or removed)