Benetton, Luciano

Luciano Benetton, (born May 13, 1935, Trevisio, Italy), Italian manufacturer and cofounder of the family-run apparel empire Benetton Group, where he was best known for his unconventional advertising campaigns.

Benetton left school at age 14 to work in a clothing store after the death of his father, a businessman. In 1965 he, his brothers, Carlo and Gilberto, and his sister, Giuliana, formed the Benetton Group. Reputedly, the sale of Luciano’s bicycle had raised the money needed to buy the company’s first knitting machine. More important, the implementation of a wool-softening process that he had encountered in Scotland helped establish a pattern of productivity and innovation that became the company’s trademark. Under a “system of services,” Benetton contracted out most manufacturing to smaller textile producers and specialized in design, dyeing, and cutting. It also established an unusual franchise arrangement whereby independent retailers stocked only Benetton clothing. Franchises proliferated wildly owing to Benetton’s popular bright-coloured knitwear, and, helped by favourable exchange rates, the firm prospered during the 1980s and early ’90s.

During this time, self-described “tastemaker” Luciano and creative director Oliviero Toscani began creating “shock” advertising campaigns—including a duck drenched with crude oil, a man’s naked derriere stamped “HIV Positive,” and the blood-soaked uniform of a soldier killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina—which focused not on the company’s products but on controversial social issues. Luciano argued that the ads reflected the company’s social consciousness and advocacy of tolerance and diversity. Others, however, branded them immoral, and in 1995 a German court ruled that the HIV ad violated the standards of fair competition because it exploited human suffering by using compassion for commercial purposes; the ruling was overturned in 2003. In 1995 the Benetton Group also lost a lawsuit in France, where a court ruled that the “HIV Positive”-stamped flesh “evoked Nazi barbarity.” Wary of shock advertising, Luciano’s siblings appeared to be wresting control of the company from him. In 2000 Luciano and Toscani created their last campaign for the company; the advertisements featured prisoners on death row.

As Benetton struggled with falling sales and increased competition, Luciano announced in 2003 that the family would take a step back from running the company. Although he remained chairman until 2012, Luciano was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the business. The Benetton family also owned a holding company that held notable stakes in the restaurant chain Autogrill and in Atlantia, an operator of roads in Italy.