The Benetton clothing company has withdrawn an ad showing Pope Benedict XVI kissing a top Egyptian imam on the lips after the Vatican denounced it as an “unacceptable” provocation.
Benetton had said its “Unhate” campaign launched Wednesday is aimed at fostering tolerance and “global love.”
The campaign’s fake photos show a half-dozen purported political nemeses in lip-locked embraces, including President Barack Obama and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The photo of the Pope had been on the company’s website all day but was pulled about an hour after the Vatican’s protest. A Benetton spokesman confirmed to The Associated Press that the Pope ad is no longer part of the campaign.
Vatican spokesperson Father Federico Lombardi said in a statement that the ad was “an offence against the sentiments of the faithful and a clear example of how advertising can violate elementary rules of respect for people in order to attract attention through provocation.”
On the company’s website, executive deputy chairman Alessandro Benetton is quoted as saying that global love is an ambitious but realistic goal.
You mean an ad campaign showing world leaders kissing each other is an unrealistic goal for “global love”? Who would have thunk it?
The picture itself shown here is one I would rather erase from my mind. You just have to wonder how such an ad ever came about in the first place.
3 comments
It’s fine to promote “global love” in the name of trying to get along with people, but looks like the Benetton ad is deliberately out to offend. Would they have Rosa Parks kissing J Edgar Hoover like that? This is NOT the way to get people to talk about your product.
Obama and Chavez are nemeses?
Another fine example of “the last acceptable prejudice.”
Now, just add a jihad….