Benetton's latest 'Unhate' campaign, launched yesterday in Paris, showing world leaders locking lips has created quite an uproar all over the world!
Image: China's leader Hu Jintao and American president Barack Obama
Italian Clothing giant United Colours of Benetton has come with its latest ad campaign called UNHATE. It seeks to promote a culture of tolerance and combat hatred around the world, the company said in a news release.
Image: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and President of South Korea Lee Myung-bak.
The images are photoshopped and digitally altered. But they have stunned the world alike. And that was the whole idea behind this advertising campaign.
Image: U.S. President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
It's one of a series of six images showing world leaders, including Obama and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, France's Nicholas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel, and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas, in a mouth-to-mouth kiss.
This photo features the Pope in a lip-lock with Ahmed al-Tayeb, Sheikh of the Al-Azzhar mosque.
UCB had used similar shock strategy earlier in 1990 as well. The ad showed controversial image of a priest and a nun in a lip-lock. The company known for its outrageous ad campaigns, some of them include - the deathbed scene of a man with AIDS, a collage of genitals of people of various races, pictures of inmates on death row and a black horse mating with a white horse.
As per reports, the company had also considered using images of Indian and Pakistani leaders in the campaign but deferred the idea due to possible cultural sensitivities and a potential backlash.
According to sources, the newly-created 'unhate' website of UCB will have software tools for visitors to pick many public figures (including Indian cricketers, Benetton officials joked) and show them in a clinch.
Images: Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu