Come join UCB campaign and feel delighted

Campaigns of United Colors of Benetton

-By Rakesh Pati

All the ads of United Colors of Benetton are abstract for a person who doesn't understand the underlying philosophy of UCB. But still the ads attract the consumers. The ads do not have anything that deals with clothing. Rather all the ads of UCB are associated with some social cause. Most of the ad campaigns arise a feeling to associate with the cause. Each human being wants to be associated with some good cause and raise voice against wrong and corrupt practices but most of the people do not have enough time to take part in such kind of events. The ads of UCB focus on this latent yet strong desire of people. Though the quality and the range of colors are the strength of UCB but still most of the customers of UCB are associated because they feel a sense of achievement by joining a group for some common social cause. Most of the buyers of the UCB are image conscious rather than price sensitive. They get associated with UCB to get a feel of improvement in their personality. The association with UCB social cause also helps them to improve the perception of the community about their values. They want the society to perceive them as a person with a positive attitude and have interest in making world a better place. The UCB customers along with the dress look forward to buy all these attributes. I like most of the ads campaigns of UCB and feel that they have really achieved a milestone by making the people aware about the social cause and injustice. By creating a cult of people with same kind of feeling for certain issue, Benetton has not only achieved huge fan following but a differentiating brand image. Most of the people now can associate UCB with the social ads even though there might not be any explicit mention about United Colors of Benetton. But I feel that even 1% of active participation in the social cause can help much more than joining such a group.

Let's examine certain issues acknowledge by UCB and how it affected their customer. A Benetton group was created in 1965. It grew with time and people started to know it for its business model which was unique, flexible and innovative. Benetton gained great attention in late 1980's due to effective ad campaign by Benetton communication. They acknowledge a major issue of social discrimination on the racial grounds. Their campaign focused on the equity of black and white. This created a strong reaction in the black community in US. Due to series of such campaigns most of the blacks got associated with UCB and became loyal customers.

Another theme that was promoted by UCB in early 1990's is equality in diversity and the universal theme to reduce cultural barriers. This ad campaign spread the message of communal harmony across various cultures. It encouraged that with increasing number of people of various culture, community and country migrating to US every year, it becomes very important to maintain equality and break cultural barriers. It also spread the message of mutual love across various cultures.

AIDS and HIV was another major social concern. Benetton took the challenge to spread the use of condoms in a way that it becomes a fashion. They took out their first ad where they showed a picture of various colors of condoms. Later on during the 1992 Olympics games in Barcelona Benetton launched another ad in which condoms were placed as Olympics circles. This drew the attention of a lot of people who were concerned about safe sex but thought using a condom is a strenuous and dull activity. Benetton presented a bright picture of the condoms and advertise use of condom as fashionable and exiting.

Another idea which was spread by the ad campaign of Benetton is that the death is the ultimate truth and in a war only the death wins. There was majorly two ad campaign which focused on this issue. The first was a picture of World War I cemetery in France with long rows of crosses symmetrically aligned as reminders that in wartime and the loss it caused to millions. In another ad a blood stained T shirt and trousers belonging to a soldier, who was killed during the war in former Yugoslavia, become a symbol of peace.

Some of the other campaigns of UCB includes are the issues related to victims of crime or war, human rights issues, food for life, Corleone, etc. Some of the campaign also raised questions about colonialism, racism and cultural poverty, an obscure and insidious illness, violence and intimidation, forced emigration, natural catastrophes. Finally it also launched campaign about the spreading of love across the globe.

So go and buy from UCB and be a part of the group

A new way to teach Consumer Behaviour

Hi I am in my 2^nd year of FPM program in Strategic Management area. As a part of our course work we have to take one PGP elective in the 4^th term. I choose to take Consumer Behaviour majorly for 2 reasons; first had an inclination towards marketing but second and the most important reason to take Consumer Behaviour is the feedback from our seniors. The FPM’s in marketing said that life is cool in his course and I won’t feel bored in his class. BORED …. Is this a joke …. He is one of a kind of teacher. If you ask , is he great?? I would say, I don’t know but he is definitely different. I had interacted with him a couple of times but I never could imagine someone teaching a subject of Consumer Behaviour or for that matter any subject this way. What is the way?? Why is his teaching different?? Is this his strategy??.... You’ll need to read the a bit further to get the answers.

We are into our first Consumer Behaviour class. I have brushed through the book a bit before going to the class. The first chapter contains “What is consumer Behaviour?? Their impact on marketing strategy bla bla (all gyan)… I thought it would be a nice class to have a nap.. But still it was the first class and I am an FPM ( 1 of the 4 samples of our batch) … How can a doctoral student sleep in class ?? So I decided to sit in the second bench where I would be more attentive (atleast I won’t sleep). He started the class with the regular course outline but in the evaluation component he has included 15% in writing blogs. Hmmm something different….

He started his lecture using a ppt. His first slide contained 4 points big bold and highlighted. Out of those first 2 are:

1. One in three girls aged 15–17 were having sex

2. 25% claimed to have had six or more sexual partner

Something interesting but acceptable as it was an Australian case, but still it was enough to shake me and most of other students. SEX just a 3 letter word, simple yet most powerful emotion of any human. We have heard, read, seen and may be experienced sex (some lucky ppl) from the day we grew up (age might differ but the feeling is same). But have you ever imagined sex can be used in educational purpose… Ya you heard me right I didn’t say sex education … I said use of sex in education… that too management education more over in IIM’s. So here is one professor who does it, and mind you, he uses it with perfection. He uses it like salt in a curry, just the right amount to make students sit on the edge of their chair and concentrate on the learning without getting distracted (thinking deeply and imagining themselves to be involved). Well as a professor to use this tool you really need to have some confidence. Do you want to know how he does that??

As I said, he is a professor of Consumer Behaviour and who better that he can know that we (students) are his consumers or customers. In his vast experience he has studied the behaviour or a typical class (young unmarried lot) and known that sex in verbal, written and visual mode draws attention. Most of the young professionals start paying more attention to the lecture when encounted with the work sex through any of their sences. Many studies have also proven the fact that sex and related exposure attracts most of the people. It is just that over stimuli of this can distract the people and make them wander into their dreamland. Hence if can hypothesise that if sexual stimuli can be induced in a proper amount then the students will be much more attentive. And if this can be embedded into the course content then it becomes even more effective.

Use of videos is seen in lot of courses but I have never seen the embedment of sensual context in slides, pictures, audio lectures and videos in the course so effectively. Let’s see how he has done it our course of consumer behaviour. The introduction of consumer behaviour is done taking a case of Australian sex education campaign, use of condoms and behaviour of teens towards use of condoms (especially girls). The case was to understand the behaviour of teens and design a campaign so that use of condoms amongst the teens increases leading to safer sex. That day the whole discussion about consumer behaviour revolved around this. Finally this was the campaign which the advertisers actually used the picture shown with the punch line: "Some boys will call you every night" so use condom.

Not only this, Professor showed videos every 10-15 min which was the sex campaigns of Russia, Kenya, Malawi etc. Other ads were to promote the use of condoms. All the ads were having adequate sensuous material which constantly kept the students to focus on learning of various aspects of consumer behaviour. Finally he showed a part of the movie “Gods must be Crazy” which also described the difference consumer behaviour of a tribal community and the city. Even this movie had naked tribal man and women using the bottle of coke in different activities and as the importance of the bottle increases the behaviour towards the bottle also changes. This was the end of the first class. I thought this was the first class and may be this was initial dose to keep the students active. But what about next class, I can only say it was even more interesting and trust me u can just not get bored, coz he won’t let you by his new strategy of gaining attention using sensuous ads and the discussion which imparts you knowledge and understanding and also keeps you at the edge of your chair. To know the details about how the professor used this technique in the next class please visit my blog soon.