IT is well-known that young people can be terribly sensitive to moralistic messages. This is a great virtue that is often unhesitatingly exploited by those whose sole interest is moneymaking, a trick never so easily performed in history than it is today given the modern tools of advertising and, let’s admit it, brainwashing.

When huge posters appeared on billboards in the early 1990s in major European cities, including Paris, showing little children dying of hunger and Aids patients on their deathbeds, people aged thirty-five and above were shocked as well as puzzled.

The gigantic photographs that showed no products displayed in a corner the slogan: “United Colors of Benetton.”

But the younger generation didn’t miss the point: “People are dying of hunger and Aids while you’re having all the fun. Thank us for this reminder and buy our fashion products whatever their prices.”

Initially, the garments company launched by three Benetton brothers in the early 1960s in Treviso, Italy, was an immediate success not for moralistic reasons but for the good quality of its clothes crafted at home by their own sister on a sewing machine purchased second-hand.

Things changed when the brothers encountered photographer Oliviero Toscani who had his singular ideas about how fashion can be marketed by pulling at the heartstrings of the young. Under Toscani’s directions, the Aids and starvation billboards were soon followed by photographs of young people from different regions of the world grouped together and exposing their genitals of various hues, in other words, their ‘united colours’.

Other posters showed the bloodied remains of a soldier, a Catholic priest and a nun in an embrace, a man displaying spoon fixed on his amputated wrist, close-ups of bodies revealing “HIV Positive” tattoos and yes, of a black stallion and a white mare!

These advertisements hardly showed any jeans, sports-shirts, jackets or pullovers that the company was trying to sell. In fact the message to the young now seemed to be: “We’re not interested in your money. We’re only trying to enhance the awareness of global unity and universal love.”

Today Benetton owns 6,500 stores around the world and has diverged into investment, real estate and road-building sectors worth about 10 billion dollars.

For the past two years the company has launched a slightly different campaign that shows world leaders kissing each other, mainly Barack Obama with the Chinese or the Venezuelan presidents and, to make matters look sacrosanct, Pope Benedict XVI with Ahmad Mohammad Al Tayyab, the Imam of the Al Azhar mosque.

Upon protest from the Vatican a statement by the company later said: “The intent of this campaign was exclusively to combat the culture of hatred in all its forms. We are sorry that the use of the image of the Pope and the Imam has offended the sentiments of the faithful. We have decided therefore to withdraw it with immediate effect.”

Like the Vatican protest, there have been frequent complaints over the years by various groups against these shocking advertisements, but the company knows well that while a simple apology is enough to end the controversy, the messages hit the required target without fail.

However, a most recent scandal is proving to be slightly different and frequent revelations in the media create the impression that Benetton has so far not succeeded in its efforts to project an entirely angelic image of itself.

The Dhaka building collapse on April 24, 2013 in which 1,129 people lost their lives brought to light the totally immoral practice many Western companies indulged in by making Bangladeshi artisans work long hours on paltry wages. Benetton initially denied it had anything to do with the Dhaka clothes manufacturing unit but finally admitted it had a workshop there when a newspaper published the photograph of garments with the “united colours” labels clearly visible.

Further Dhaka tragedy exposures brought to light the sombre fact that while in Europe the minimum authorised wages for 150 hours of work per month amount to slightly over 1,120 euros (plus 310 euros contributed by the employer to cover the health, emergency leave and retirement funds), these companies were paying something like 35 euros per month that obviously did not include any health or retirement benefits to the Bangladeshi workers.

The man most shocked by these disclosures was nobody else than Pope Francis. His statement makes the point clear: “Slave labour is being enforced in defiance of something beautiful God has given us all -the capacity to create, to work and to have dignity. These companies do not act morally but are only concerned with balance sheets and moneymaking. They are acting against the will of God!’

The writer is a journalist based in Paris.

(ZafMasud@gmail.com)