Who is the customer?

            It can look like that clothes industry just selling their products. Nevertheless, the messages they use in their ads are very different. In this topic will be an overview of how advertising for two similar product brands in the same category appeals to different types of consumers. The points made are based on the consumer behaviour literature.

United Colors of Benetton

            United Colors of Benetton is one of many clothes selling companies but has got a unique approach to advertise themselves. Most of their print ads are set out to increase a sense of basic humanity focused on skin colour (Andreiadis et al 2004).

They have chosen not to directly advertise their product. Instead, they are increasing brand awareness by approaching social issues such as racism, child abuse, AIDS, etc. By doing it, they want to show themselves as the company which is not interested in the products but in the people wearing them. What is more, they are available for everyone no matter what is their skin colour, social background, class, living region or sexual preference (Andreiadis et al 2004).

The United Colors of Benetton marketing director Oliviero Toscani had a very simple but powerful recipe for their advertising. The plan was to take a powerful image with the logo in the corner and from that point on, the ad will work by itself. He believes that this type of passive and aggressive advertising pushed Benetton from small manufacturer somewhere in Italy, to a worldwide corporation (Andreiadis et al 2004). Even if not all campaigns have done well to the image of the company, they still increased brand awareness by significant amount of PR coverage and word of mouth activities (Percy and Elliott 2005).

All of the ads form part of an image campaign for the Benetton brand and are not related to a product. Moreover, they use passiveness as they do not contain any request to buy the product (Hackley 2005). What is more, the only words the ads contain is the slogan and brand name what keeps the ad abstract. In addition to that, Benetton use subjects of recent political events, religious manifestations and address social and environmental problems. Sometimes they use erotica. All this makes people process and think about the ads and reflex (Alstiel and Grow 2005). This kind of processing the message is called simultaneous and includes both systematic and heuristic models of processing the ads (O’Shaughnessy 2004).

 

            All of the Benetton ads are communicable and has got a message that gives some thoughts. Benetton's target market is relatively educated and is attracted by visual emotional but informative appeals (Sutherland and Sylvester 1993). Firm use real advertising which “was meant to expose the public real issues, and themes that most people would never like to deal with: illness, death, forced immigration, violence, intimidation.” (Andreiadis et al 2004) Some of them seem to be brutal but real. The ad related to AIDS exposes the emotionally painful moment and the agony of the dying man. This carries a serious and modern tone of voice in approaching the present-day audience (Percy and Elliott 2005). Nevertheless, next Benetton campaign was “more toned down, keeping controversy at a manageable level.” (Andreiadis et al 2004)

            To underline their message of being united brand they use contrast. Mostly it is the contrast of the skin colour of the people in their ads (Percy and Elliott 2005). Nevertheless they have no iconic object or person as it keeps their message clear. It is a brand for everyone.

American Apparel

            American Apparel (AA) is the company with a completely different approach to advertise similar products.

Minimal message and provocative image in American Apparel (AA) ad campaigns are designed to get attention and create controversy (Band no date). Word of mouth plays a key role in their campaigns. They are trying to reach their primary audience directly and create buzz between others.

The key fact that distinguished AA sexuality based approach from other risky marketers is the nature of models in its advertising. The AA models were recruited on urban streets and other general places. Pictured youth are not models but good looking teenagers. The resulting ads showed a range of young beauty with variety of body typed which were not modified to eliminate imperfections. The idea was to provide the appearance of intimate casual snapshots or art photographs. It is their inherent youth appeal which makes them sexy. They were meant to look genuine and authentic rather than sexually provocative. It is very rare to see natural beauty without any corrections nowadays and it is exactly what attracts people eye (Band no date), (D’Alessandro and Chitty 2011).

AA does advertise relatively cheap products so the message is quite simple. They try to attract their target market of Young Metropolitan Adults using playful, erotic, flirtatious and controversial tone of voice (Percy and Elliott 2005), (Band no date). They picture ordinary girls, females to get the message that they are for everyone and that people in the ads are product users and consumers can relate to them. Nevertheless, they underline the individuality of their customers as most young buyers are concerned about being different (Band no date).

However, AA seems to think that women should always be presented in sexual positions in marketing. Often, you will not see the woman’s face, but if you do, she is expressionless, vacant, compliant, and submissive with their legs spread or on all fours. Cameras are focused on genitals, even when the model’s face appears in the photograph. There is often alcohol involved which suggests a removal of control from the women depicted. The models are presented like sex dolls what overlaps with the majority of current youth perceptions (Adomaitis and Johnson 2008). Often the female models are splayed out in beds, sometimes with other clothing partially removed or yanked down to expose buttocks and genital areas. AA chooses a high proportion of very young looking Asian and Latin American women what underlines their cross-ethnic identity (Band no date).

In most of the ads, they have company name written in black on white background. No more text or logos usually appear in their ads. That keeps ads simple, with the attention aimed at the female body (Percy and Elliott 2005).

Conclusion

            All clothes selling companies use they own methods to advertise the brand. Benetton do this by approaching the social problems and issues that usually not getting any attention from the brands. American Apparel uses controversy to make a buzz what increases brand recognition. Both methods are useful as they encourage society to talk about them.

References

Adomaitis, A. & Johnson, K. (2008) Advertisements: Interpreting images used to sell to young adults. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 12 (2), 188–192.

Alstiel, T. & Grow, J. (2005) Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics From the Outside/In. London: Sage.

Andreiadis, E., Baciu, I., Iancu, A. & Pilsu, M. (2004) United Colors of Benetton – Case Study. 33-36.

Band, J (no date) Contagious Case Study: American Apparel. 68-77.
D’Alessandro, S. & Chitty, B. (2011) Real or Relevant Beauty? Body Shape and Endorser Effects on Brand Attitude and Body Image. Psychology & Marketing, 28 (8), 843 – 878.
Hackley, C. (2005) Advertising & Promotion: Communicating Brands. London, SAGE. Available from MyIlibrary [Accessed 10th November 2012].

O’Shaughnessy, J. & O’Shaughnessy, N. J. (2004) Persuasion in Advertising, London, Routledge.

Percy, L. & Elliott, R. (2005) Strategic Advertising Management. Oxford: OUP.

Sunset, B. (06/02/2008) American Apparel Campaign. Weblog. [Online]. Available from: http://marketing-case-studies.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/american-apparel-campaign.html [Accessed 10th November 2012].

Sutherland, M. & Sylvester, A. K. (1993). Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer: What

Works, What Doesn't and Why? NSW: Allen & Unwin.