(CASE STUDY) MKT463 / Page 1 of 10

Is the Message Being Received? Benetton Analyzed

7¾ is article examines a number of images used by the Briton company in advertising campaigns throughout
Europe. It discusses some of the reasons why different reactions the advertisemenss may occur, and then uses
the images to examine the different interpretations which groups from Britain, France, Norway and Germany
have placed on the images. The results show that there is often a significant difference in the interpreted
meaning of the images by the four sample groups. The article concludes that advertisers need to be more
aware that the message that they believe is being transmilted may not be the one that is received, that the
addition of text/language may be needed to lead the receiver to the
intended meaning. .

加 the last Jew years a number of the Benetton advertisements have at times caused a public outcry

in the UK. These same images have not provoked the same negative feelings across other European countries.
This article explores why such different reactions can exist and examines if the images used by Benetton are
interpreted the same by four European nationalities.

INTRODUCTION

Despite the grand speeches that many politicians make regarding a single Europe and closer economic and
political ties, the fact remains that Europe will no doubt always consist of a number of distinct countries each
with their own unique cultural environment. Whilst over time many elements of these environments may and
indeed are becoming common to all countries, e.g. political, legal and technological, other elements,
particularly language and social organization, will remain quite separate. It is the influence of these various
elements on the populations which produces what is termed 'their culture'. Evans (1991) has defined cultures
'common meaning*, and it is this view along with that of Hall's (1957) 'culture is communication 1 which are so
important when trying to understand how the messages being conveyed by advertising in a multinational
setting are actually being received.
For advertising to be useful, communication between the company that originates the advertisement
and the potential customer must take place. Real communication is a two-way process requiring active
participation by both the sender and the receiver of the message to facilitate the transfer of meaning. According
to McCracken (1989), 'Meaning begins as something resident in the culturally constituted world, in the
physical and social world constituted by the categories and principles of the prevailing culture'. It' is the
designer of the advertisement who inserts the intended meaning into the advertisement, but this meaning has to
be received and interpreted by the potential customers.
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For the message to be received the way the sender intends that it should, thereby enabling true
communication, a common frame of reference occurs that actual communication takes place. In fact, the term
communication, derived from the Latin word commus, means to seek commonness. Advertisers must be aware
of the importance of using signs, visual or linguistic, which have a common meaning for the targeted recipients
of the message, particularly those working in a multicultural dimension.

THE RECEIVER

Fauquier (1988) has described the reception process as having 'several distinct realities'. The 'primary'
phenomenon is that initial reaction which occurs when the individual is exposed to ail the different psychic
phenomena that arise continuously while watching, listening to, or reading the media where the advertisement
may occur. After this initial experience, the advertisement leaves residual images which remain in the memory
after the exposure has ended. These images are then 'worked through by the receiver's consciousness, culture,
memory and sensitivity*, and are synthesized into a 'secondary' reality. When the respondents are asked to
convey the meaning of the message they received, a third or 'tertiary' reality exists due to 'omissions and
additions and by the fact that it is a translation of what was "felt" into 也 irly restrictive linguistic code'.
The images used in this research are the same for each sample, keeping the primary reception the same
for each sample group. It is the secondary, synthesized reality of the respondents that is largely influenced by
their culture which distinguishes the received meaning of the advertising message in the mind of the respondent.
This secondary reception is more closely represented by answers to specific questions using the agree/ disagree
format, as linguistic translations are constant as are any omissions OF additions to the meaning. The tertiary
reality is better reflected by open-type questions allowing the respondents full freedom to communicate their
interpretation.
The cultural upbringing of the sample groups causes the respondents who view the advertisements to
give the images a culturally-defined meaning. This completed cultural meaning is given to the advertisement
image by the respondents adding their own experience to the signs present in the advertisements.
 (CASE STUDY) MKT463 / Page 3 of 10

THE ADVERTISEMENTS

Advertisements are simply a combination of various signs, usually visual and linguistic, which are . h
interpreted by the receiver to produce meaning. Hirschman (1991) has proposed a tripartite structure of
examining the meaning conveyed within advertisements which is a reflection of consumers' consumption
ideology. She suggests that the 'sacred' pole of meaning is 'centered around ruralness, natural imagery,
communalism, manual labour, interpersonal co-operation and consumption of simple self produced (or naturally
derived) products', and 'linked to nature or which signify love and caring1. The 'secular' imagery is 'centred
around technology, urbanism, personal achievement and man's mastery over nature', while the 'mediating*
ideology is found where the 'semiotic structure proposed virtue in both the sacred and secular aspects'.
The four Benetton advertisements used in this research are the new-born baby with umbilical cord still
attached (Figure 2); a military cemetery (Figure 3); a zebra and a brightly-coloured parrot (Figure 4); and three
children of different races, sticking out their tongues (Figure5). The images used in these advertisements can
clearly be seen to use the natural, communal and interpersonal imagery typical of the sacred ideology. '
The meanings which Benetton supplied and intended for the four advertisements are as follows.

The new-born baby

Theme 1: Love, the force from which life itself is bom.
Theme 2: A baby is the most permanent form of love. ■
Theme 3: Holding on to the warmth and security of a mother's womb.

The military cemetery

Theme /: A military cemetery.
Theme 2: Human beings of different races and religions die for common ideals or opposing causes.
Theme 3: Nobody wins a war.

The zebra and parrot

Theme /: The creative forces that nature possesses.
Theme 2: The striped zebra and brightly-coloured parrot demonstrate that men's artistic attempts appear to ....be
nothing more than imitation.. . ......

The children
Theme It Three different races (black, yellow and white). .
Theme 2: Sticking out tongues- an expression common to all children.
Theme 3: The faces are different colours but the tongues are the same.

SAMPLE

To enable a multi-cultural comparison of the interpretation of the meaning of the advertisements, four . £
 (CASE STUDY) MKT463 / Page 4 of 10
national groups were chosen: British; Norwegian; French; anfGerman. Each group consisted of 30-35 students,
all attending a Business School in northern England. The students were aged between 20-25 years of age and of
both sexes. All were able to speak and write English to a reasonably proficieru level and quite able to
communicate at a normal conversational level.
Due to the samples perhaps not being truly representative of their national characteristics as a whole,
any conclusions drawn from this- study cannot claim to be representative of any national characteristics.
However,-the samples are drawn from a similar subset of the four nationalities. Therefore, meaningful
comparisons may be drawn about a specific group of the population of the four nationalities, which in general
will reflect much of their national characteristics. ■

Questionnaire Design
A questionnaire (in English) was constructed with a view to keeping it as simple as possible to ensure that the
non-English respondents fully understood the questions. The questionnaire was constructed in two sections. The
first section was an open-ended question asking the opinions of the respondents as to what they thought the
message was that the images were trying to communicate. The respondent could answer in single words or
sentences. The reason for allowing sentences related to the fact that single words could have been taken out of
context and thus wrongly interpreted in this investigation, particularly for the nonnative English speakers.
The second section of the questionnaire used a closed question format. Various themes/meanings which
were provided by Benetton were presented in the form of a matrix. A rating scale was used to assess how
strongly the respondents agreed or disagreed that the messages put forward were portrayed by the image in the
advertisement.

Methodology
The primary objective of this investigation was to establish whether there were significant differences in the
perception and interpretation of the Benetton advertisements by people of different national groups. It was aiso
hoped to determine whether the meaning of the message that Benetton expected to convey was actually being
consistently interpreted in the way that was intended by Benetton.
The four advertisement images were photocopied on to overhead colour transparencies after, first . ■
■.
removing any reference to the Benetton name.- This enabled the images to be shown through a projector to ail
the respondents in each group at the same time. .
The first part of the questionnaire was then distributed to the respondents, who were given one minute
to answer the question. The answers to this first question were collected before the second question section was
given out. The sequencing and distribution'of the two questions was important to ensure that the respondents
were not influenced in their free interpretation of the meaning for the first section. This process was repeated for
each of the four population sample groups.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Profile analysis was used to analyse the outcome of the second question. A score of i showed that the respondent
 (CASE STUDY) MKT463 / Page 5 of 10

strongly disagreed with the proposed meaning; a score of 5 showed strong agreement with the * theme; a score
of 3 represented indifference. Median scores were calculated for each theme and each national group to allow for
the potential that the numeric value associated with the scale was unevenly spread, i.e. the distance .between,
say, strongly agree and agree was greater that the distance berween disagree and strongly disagree, thus making
the analysis statistically more valid. However, using the median rather than the mean does have a tendency to
produce a flattened and less distinct series of results. Using the resultant median scores, it can be said that any
score above 3 shows general agreement about the intended message theme within a nationality group, while a
score of below 3 shows a tendency to disagree with the intended message theme. The profile analysis provided a
general, average view of each nationality, which is more appropriate to this investigation than would be an
analysis of each rating in turn.
In order to gain a measure of any statistical significance of the findings between the nationality group
and the degree of agreement or disagreement, a chi-squared method was used. This was calculated manually
rather than using the standard computer packages available to take account of any small frequencies in any
response due to the sample size; hence the varying degrees of freedom used to determine the significance in the
chi-square values.

Baby image

Theme 1: Love, the force from which /诡 itself is bom

The results show that the British respondents agreed ■most with the depicted theme of the image. While the
Norwegians remained indifferent, the German and especially the French respondents on average disagreed that
the intended message was portrayed in the image. Using the chi-squared test, a value of 21.43 with 6 degrees of
freedom was obtained. This showed that there was a very significant relationship between the rating and
nationality at the 1 per cent level. ■

Theme 2: A baby is the most permanent form of love

Again, the British respondents had the highest average score, while the Norwegian, German and French
respondents were indifferent that this theme was symbolised in the image. Again, there was a significant
'relationship at the 1 per cent level with a chi-square value of 23.71 and 9 degrees of freedom.

Theme 3: Holdingto the warmth and security of a mother's womb .

The results of the profile analysis for responses to this theme again showed that the British respondents showed
general agreement that the image portrayed the suggested theme, with the other nationalities showing an
indifferent response. The chi-square value of 22.12 again demonstrated a very significant relationship at the 1
per cent level with 9 degrees of freedom.

The French responses were the most surprising. All the themes presented could be regarded as positive
in nature. In the first question where the respondents were asked to give a free response to the image, the French
showed that 72.4 per cent of the respondents gave positive replies; these included ■
responses such as love, life, happiness, etc. It was therefore surprising to note that these same respondents
 (CASE STUDY) MKT463 / Page 6 of 10
disagreed on average with the three themes given, which were generally positive in nature. However, it should
be noted that this shows disagreement with the specific themes quoted and not the general positive notions
conveyed by the images.
The British responses also showed a tum-round, but in the opposite direction. Their responses to the
first question section showed only 16.7-per cent giving a positive response, while 50 per cent gave a negative
response. However, the British responses to the second question section generally showed agreement to the
intended themes. '

Cemetery image
The results of the interpretation of this image were varied, with only the second theme. Human beings of
different races and religions die for common ideals or opposing causes, showing any significant difference at the
1 per cent level between the responses of the four sample groups. A chi-square value of 18.26 with 6 degrees of
freedom was obtained. For the other two themes there was general agreement between all four' groups that the
image did not portray the theme suggested, hence there was no significant difference in their responses.
The response to the first unprompted question showed that 59 per cent of the German respondents said
that the image represented death by war. This was a contradictory response to the question that the image
represented a military cemetery, where 67 per cent of the Germans disagreed that the image projected the theme.
The general message conveyed in the response to the image in the free association question from all the groups
was one of death, rather than the deeper messages which Benetton had intended.-

Zebra
Theme I: the creative forces that nature possesses .
The Brirish, French and German respondents on average disagreed that this theme was portrayed by the image,
while the Norwegians remained indifSerent The chi-square analysis showed that there was a significant
difference between the groups at the 1 per cent level of 16.8, with 6 degrees of freedom.

Theme 2: The striped zebra- and brightly-coloured parrot demonstrate that man's artistic attempts appear to be
nothing more than imitation
Again, a significant difference at the 1 per cent level was obtained with a chi-square value of 11J3 and 6 degrees
of freedom. Here, the Norwegian respondents generally agreed with the theme suggested while the other national
groups showed indifference.
The responses to the first free association question for this image were generally related to colours and
colour contrast (22 per cent of respondents) or friendship and equality (53 per cent). However, a third
 (CASE STUDY) MKT463 / Page 7 of 10

of the German responses included other interpretations, e.g., 'protecting the wildlife', 'exotic animals
live in far away countries', 'contrasts African and South American animal life', etc.
The colours theme, contrasts between black and white and colours, was most prevalent in the French
responses (41 per cent). The connotations of friendship and equality were given by 50 per cent of both the
British and German respondents along with 74 per cent of the Norwegians.

Children
The overwhelming response to this image was general disagreement that the three themes intended by Benetton
were portrayed by the image. Only the Norwegians - who were indifferent to the suggestion that the third theme,
'the faces are different colours but the tongues are the same', was portrayed by the image - showed any
significant difference to the general responses of the other groups. This was also confinned by the chi-square test
value of 11.42 at 6 degrees of freedom. The responses to the other themes showed no significant differences.
.
The responses to the free association question as to the respondents' interpretation of the image showed
a high level of agreement that the message being conveyed was one of friendship and equality along with those
generally associated with children such as innocence, happiness, fun and playing.

CONCLUSIONS

It has been clearly demonstrated that the intended messages which Benetton hoped to convey with the images
used in their advertisements have not been interpreted as they had wished. The secondary reception of the
message, which was prompted by asking the respondents their opinions of the specific themes, generally
disagreed that any of the images portrayed what was intended. The tertiary reception conveyed in the free
response to the respondents' interpretation of the image showed that the messages which the respondents
received were in many instances completely different to the intended message. However, even though the
intended interpretation of the message was not achieved, the actual interpretation of the. images did convey
positive responses in the minds of many of the receivers.
All of the four images used in this investigation showed that there was a significant difference in the
reception of the message between the different national groups of at least one of the intended themes suggested
by Benetton. The most significant difference in the interpretation of the images was in the controversial new-
bom baby image. Here it can be seen that all four groups had different levels of agreement with the intended
themes portrayed. The willingness .by the British to change their minds in their response to the 'new-born baby*
image.when presented with additional infonnation as to the intended message demonstrated that images alone
may not be the best method of conveying a consistent international message. When the Benetton baby
advertisement was used in Britain it may have been more acceptable to the British public and resulted in fewer
negative reactions had captions been added to assist the interpretation and meaning transfer of the intended
message, McCracken notes that .

Visual images and verbal material appear to assume a very particular relationship in this transfer
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process. It is chiefly the visual aspect of an advertisement that conjoins the world and the object when a
meaning transfer is sought. Verbal material serves chiefly as a kind of prompt that instructs the
viewer/reader in the salient properties supposed to be expressed by the visual part of the advertisement.
Text (especially headlines) makes explicit what is already implicit in the image.
(McCracken, 1986)

The high levels of agreement to ^he free response question that the zebra image represented friendship
and equality suggested that the animal images are received in a similar manner across various cultures, even
though it was not the message that was intended. The use of animals is therefore one potential image which
could be used in a standardised international advertising campaign that will be interpreted in a similar positive
manner. This is also the case with the use of child images, which also coiyured up positive interpretations by all
the respondents.
In summary, the results of this investigation have demonstrated that images alone are not the best
method of transmitting a message which is intended to be interpreted by different national or cultural groups.
Different cultural groups do interpret images significantly differently. However, some images can still portray a
positive meaning to receivers, even though the actual interpretation is different between the cultural groups.
Recent criticism on marketing research findings noted by Bell (1992), while defending advertising
companies' creative advertisement,* must be treated with caution. The ultimate aim of any advertisement is to
sell the company and its product. The message that the advertisement delivers should facilitate the sale. The
trend over recent years for advertisements to become more esoteric and harder to interpret by the potential
customer should be of great concern to sellers of products. The message from this research to advertisement
designers is quite clear. First, they should not assume that the message that they think is being transmitted is the
one that is being received. Second, text/language aiding the interpretation of an image's meaning should be
seriously considered in order to lead the viewer into the intended interpretation of the image. Finally, they should
ask the question, what is the appropriate message that must be conveyed to actually sell the product.
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Figure 2 The new-bom baby

A military cemetery
 (CASE STUDY) MKT463 / Page 10 of 10

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Figure 4 A zebra and a brightly-coloured parrot

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Figure 5 Three children of different races

Source: Ian G. Evans (University of Glamorgan) & Sumandeep Riyait (Leeds Business School)
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INTI COLLEGE
MALAYSIA

BRITISH BUSINESS STUDIES DEGREE PROGRAMME -

BA. (HONS).IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION &
MARKETING .. ..GRADUATE .DIPLOMA IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIQN
PROGRAMME * MKT 463 : MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 2
FINAL EXAMINATION : DECEMBER 1999 SESSION

Answer FOUR (4) questions: TWO (2) compulsory questions from Section A and any
TWO (2) questions from Section B.

SECTION A

Answer BOTH compulsory questions. Total 50 marks.

Case study : “Is the Message Being Received? Benetton Analyzed"

Question 1

As the Marketing Communications Manager, you have been assigned to devise an

appropriate, advertising plan for Benetton.
(25 marks)

Question 2

Explain other parts of the promotional tools integrated with advertising activities in order to
convey the intended message that would sell the Benetton product.

(25 marks)
 MKT 463/Page2of2
SECTION B

Answer any TWO questions ■

■ Question 3 .
. ; - 』 * I ■ *
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1a
There have been many complaints about the advertisement from Benetton and other
organisations in recent years. Discuss the opposing views which members of the public and
advertisers might hold regarding ethics in general in the field of promotion.
(25 marks)
Question 4

Marketing communicators direct their efforts toward influencing consumers' brand- related
beliefs, attitude and choice. The ultimate goal is to influence consumers to purchase the
marketer's brand rather than the competitors.

In your opinion, how well has Benetton accomplished this goal? Discuss your answer based
on consumer processing model (CPM).
(25 marks)
Question 5

Advertising effectiveness is measured in terms of achieving awareness, conveying copy

points, influencing attitudes, creating emotional responses and aflecting purchase choices.

In your opinion, how would Benetton know whether its advertising is doing a good job?
(25 marks)
Question 6 …

Acting a Marketing Communications Manager, you have invited a few advertising-

^.^ageiici^s' to ■ their ■proposals ■ a^id to- mak© presentation ^for your account.
Discuss
the criteria you propose to use to enable you to decide which agency will receive the
business. (5 marks)
-THE END-'
MKT463/Dec99F/Ivy