Last week Benetton launched a new campaign called Unhate. It included billboards and print ads of various powerful people kissing each other (shock horror) on the lips, and with their eyes closed.

The photo-shopped images ranged from President Barack Obama kissing China’s Hu Jintao, to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu passionately laying one on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.  

As expected, the image that provoked the biggest reaction was the one showing the Pope kissing Egypt's Ahmed el Tayyeb, imam of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo.

So shocked and offended was the Vatican, that within hours of its release, Benetton had to withdraw the image from the market. But even after that, according to various news reports, the Vatican said that it would still take legal action to prevent the further publication of the photo. To date no other personality that was used in the ads, complained.

Now I wonder, isn’t there a single level-headed person within the Vatican’s PR team? Don’t they realise that this is every marketer’s dream come true, and had they not protested at all, half of us wouldn’t have Googled Benetton’s Unhate campaign in an attempt to see the offending image before it gets relegated to the Spanish Inquisition files?  I for one, wouldn't be blogging about it, had the Vatican not given me reason to.

What a holy PR fiasco I say.

First of all, if there were ever any doubts, the Vatican revealed just how homophobic it really is, because you would only be so offended by such an image if you thought it was disgustingly wrong to kiss another man on the lips. Couple that with a lack of sense of humour and you have a panicked PR team, a legal suit, and an ecstatic marketer singing all the way to the bank.

Now, before anyone loses their wits and starts throwing verbal lashings on comments board, let it be known that I am fully aware that the world’s intolerance cannot be solved by people in authority kissing. Neither am I under the impression that the quickest way to world peace would be if the Pope, and people in power were to have romantic relationships with each other. In fact, as much as I love the campaign, I much prefer its subtext, which is a clever dig at world leaders who regularly pay lip services to real world issues.

The point I’m trying to make, is that the Vatican, in its offended stupor, saved Benetton millions in additional media buy and singlehandedly elevated the offending image to stardom!

In addition, there is no way that Benetton can be accused of doing this as a knee jerk reaction to losing market share because, the campaign is entirely consistent with their brand image which has always tried to push the boundaries by shocking and at the same time sending out a tolerant message.

Twenty five years ago they started off with promoting racial diversity by featuring brightly coloured shirts, on equally brightly coloured children. This is not a big deal today, but it was back then. The only difference was that if you were offended by blacks and whites holding hands, you wouldn’t have openly admitted it, because it was already uncool to seem racist. Today, twenty five years later, the Vatican still doesn’t think it’s uncool to seem homophobic (not to mention humourless), hence the open protest.

Past Benetton campaigns included pictures of a new born bloody baby with its umbilical cord attached, three identical looking human hearts placed in a row with the words “White”, “Black”, “Yellow” written on them, a nun kissing a priest, a man dying of AIDS and even a picture of a priest romantically kissing a nun. In some cases the photos don’t feature any of their clothing, and simply sport a discreet logo on the side.   Have a look at a selection of envelope-pushing Benetton ads here.

Ethical ? Controversial? The debate is raging on and that’s all Benetton ever wanted. By pushing the envelope to the point of ridiculous, they’ve hit a place much deeper than they would have just by selling cardigans and brightly coloured shirts.

Will they sell more?

Let’s just say that I don’t think they will sell less, but this depends more on their pricing and selection strategy rather than the Unhate brand campaign. What’s for sure is that thanks to the Vatican’s reaction, they got so much more global exposure than they could ever afford to buy, even more than the Italian label Nolita, which in 2007, caused somewhat of a stir with billboards showing a naked, anorexic woman.

The difference? The Vatican had not protested against that image.