Benetton - UNHATE

The fashion company Benetton has launched a controversial campaign. On the posters of the Unhate campaign, you can see how world leaders kiss with each other. The campaign was aimed at fostering tolerance and ‘global love’, but gave them much trouble.

On the pictures you can see the previous Pope Benedict XVI kissing with Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb, a senior Egyptian imam. For the Vatican was this new advertising campaign totally unacceptable.

Also US President Barack Obama kisses Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu locks lips with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and North Korean leader Kim Jong II is kissing with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

The previous French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are also kissing with each other.

After one day confirmed a spokesman of Benetton that the Pope-imam ad was no longer part the campaign.

Benetton said the pictures of the religious and political leaders kissing were symbolic images of reconciliation to stimulate reflection on how politics, faith and ideas, when they are divergent and mutually opposed, must still lead to dialogue and mediation.

There is also a spot of this campaign, in the begin of the spot you see many different people and they are hugging and kissing each other. But there are also people fighting in this spot and at the end of the spot you see the word ‘UNHATE’.

It’s remarkable that the peoples, who play in the spot, are from many different countries and people with different cultures. In my eyes, the campaign was not bad, but it wasn’t good also. Because there was a lot of criticism of the pictures of the world leaders, on the other hand, I liked the message. They want more love in this world and ‘unhate’ this world.

The campaign has a lot of buzz, but it wasn’t always positive.