Can the Pope and Barack Obama save Benetton?

 

The Vatican has vowed to take legal action against the Italian fashion chain Benetton in retaliation for an advertising campaign that features an image of the Pope kissing an Egyptian imam.

Lawyers acting for the Vatican were told to "take the proper legal measures" to stop any use of the doctored photo, despite an announcement made by Benetton on Wednesday saying it would pull the image from its campaign.

A spokesperson for the Vatican said the picture is "damaging to not only to dignity of the pope and the Catholic Church but also to the feelings of believers", but it is unclear on what grounds the Vatican is proposing to sue.

Other adverts in the campaign feature France's Nicolas Sarkozy kissing Germany's Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama kissing the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – world leaders who do not share the closest of friendships.

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For a long time, Benetton has felt too broad in comparison, targeting everybody and nobody, losing its place at fashion's forefront. The newest ad campaign, is a prime example; referencing and paying homage to the iconoclasm of the earlier ads, it depicts the Pope kissing Ahmed al-Tayeb, Sheikh of the al-Azhar mosque. But it could be a case of "too much": a brazen attempt to bandwagon us back into believing in the relevance of the brand. 

UNHATE is United Colors of Benetton's new worldwide campaign that invites the leaders and citizens of the world to combat the "culture of hatred". thus, they chose shocking images that attract people's attention. Nevertheless, the images they chose to get the audience's attention are considered as too exaggerated by some people such as the Vatican's followers. Will this new campaign work? Will it save Benetton?

On the other hand, Benetton's main goal is to drive the desire for participation and change especially the young. in this way, the want to motivate them and convince them to actively take initiatives. so, the UNHATE campaign can be viewed as a positive way of communication that calls for action. Personaly, I defend this campaign for it represents freedom and democracy, and banishes physical, political, social or ideological boundaries.
Last but not least, we do not have to omit the fact that Benetton finances a communication research center called Fabrica that was created in 1994. the main purpose of the center is to combine culture with industry and especially offering to young people the opportunity to develop their creativity as well as cultural and social communication projects. That means that they do give importance to their communication and they are interested in the future generations social and cultural welfare.

Australia: Newspaper circulation falls 3.5 per cent

Australian newspaper sales have continued their decline as readers move to digital platforms, a report says. Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) data showed Monday to Saturday newspaper sales fell by 3.5 per cent in the three months to September 30, compared with same period last year. The Newspaper Works, a non-profit body set up to promote the industry, said the decline was less than the 4.2 per cent fall the previous quarter and came in "testing retail conditions and shifting consumer confidence". "The ABC printed newspaper figures only tell part of the story because smartphone and tablet newspaper apps are not yet measured," The Newspaper Works chief executive Tony Hale said in a statement. "There's no doubt that newspaper audiences are expanding and newspaper content is being delivered how, when and where consumers want it, and it's working." Mr Hale noted that during the three-month audit period, Fairfax had released figures showing more than 200,000 apps had been downloaded for its The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers. The Newspaper Works said the Audit Bureau of Circulations was working on new rules to calculate both print and digital sales.

Although some people believe that printing will never die, the statistics are there to prove that people move from the printed information and entertainment to a digital form of communication. Thus, it is quite normal to assist to a decrease in the newspaper circulation. Actually, i made some research about the subject and here are my findings:

According to the 2008-09 MPHS, 72% of Australian households had home internet access and 78% of households had access to a computer. Between 1998 to 2008-09, household access to the internet at home has more than quadrupled from 16% to 72%, while access to computers has increased from 44% to 78%.

So, even though smartphones and tables applications are not yet measured they do play an important role in the newspaper circulation variation. 

"At Sony Music, a Plan to Dominate the Industry" by BEN SISARIO

A huge self-portrait of Bono hangs in the Madison Avenue office of Doug Morris, the new chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment, and on a nearby table sit his snapshots, arm-in-arm with Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. Along with a determination to dominate the music industry, Mr. Morris brought them from his last job as head of the Universal Music Group.
Mr. Morris, one of music’s reigning patriarchs, took over Sony in July, after 15 years at Universal. He is widely seen as the most capable hand to steady Sony’s music division, which has been plagued by internal quarrels since its merger with BMG in 2004. So far he has been aggressive in trying to remake the company, the home of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé and Usher.

“He is a master at attracting and developing executive talent,” said Jon Landau, Mr. Springsteen’s manager. “No one is better at picking the people who pick the hit artists.”

Mr. Morris is also an embodiment of one of the unchanging realities of the music business since he is working on the fact that, despite all the changes in technology, there is still money to be made in hits, and staying successful means holding on to a bigger piece of a shrinking pie. This is a very important step in the music world since it protects the basic origin of hits making them even more succesful than modern technologies as Mr. Morris achievements prove.