Sears drops Benetton pact
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February 17, 2000: 1:46 p.m. ET
Retailer calls ads featuring death row inmates insensitive to public, customers
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Sears Roebuck and Co. has cancelled its contract with Italian clothing manufacturer Benetton because its ads featuring death row inmates outraged customers.
Sears (S: Research, Estimates) executives, who learned of Benetton's campaign last month, chose to drop the contract to carry the Benetton U.S.A. line after deciding Wednesday that customers are outraged and that the ads are insensitive to victims' families.
"The issue is the insensitivity to the victims. We're not taking a stand pro or con on capital punishment, but we felt these ads were inappropriate; they open a lot of old wounds," Sears spokesman Tom Nicholson said. "Sears firmly felt that this kind of a campaign was not consistent with what Sears stands for."
The ads, which began appearing on U.S. billboards and in magazines in late January, feature photos of actual death row inmates with the words "Sentenced to Death," and list the crime, the convict's date of birth and expected method of execution.
Benetton (BNG: Research, Estimates) said the $15 million campaign designed by Oliviero Toscani and including interviews with the inmates by a free-lance Newsweek reporter, is intended to raise awareness of the death penalty in a non-judgmental way, not glamorize the convicts or their crimes.
"Sears has the right to do what Sears has to do. We're completely understanding of that," Benetton spokesman Mark Major said Thursday. "...The point of the campaign is cultural talk about social issues. The objective in this campaign is similar to talk about issues that are bad and good, such as war, love, peace, AIDS. This is just another issue the company is focusing on."
Major said the company is searching for a new distributor for the Benetton U.S.A. brand, which was designed specifically for Sears but is manufactured by a separate company,
Sears initially offered to retain the contract as long as Benetton agreed to allow the Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based retailer to preview future ads, Nicholson said. But after protests in front of Benetton's New York offices Wednesday and complaints from victims' advocacy groups, Sears chose to cancel the contract.
Benetton shares were down 15/16 to 37-5/16 in afternoon trading Thursday. Shares of Sears were down 1-15/16 to 27-3/4.
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