Marketing case study
“The reasons why people buy Benetton”

Marketing – MSP 2011 Damien DUPA Stéphanie PIERS DE RAVESCHOOT Chai VENG

Introduction
Today, the Benetton Group is present in 120 countries around the world. Its core business is fashion clothing, a group with a strong Italian character, divided under a set of brands: the casual United Colors of Benetton, the glamour-oriented Sisley, the leisurewear brand Playlife. Benetton’s main objective is to be an Italian quality brand, with a wide product range, complete, modern, and offering fashion without excess. As such, the Group produces over 150 million garments every year. Its network of around 6,000 stores around the world offers high quality customer services and presence, and generates a total turnover of over 2 billion Euros. Everybody knows Benetton, in particular for its advert campaigns, but what is the real marketing strategy of the brand? We chose to study the case of United Colors of Benetton to try to answer to the questions of knowing why and how the brand manages to attract its customers, and how it has succeeded in becoming world-widely famous (5th most renown brand in the world in terms of popularity). To be able to answer to these questions, we will look at the company’s strategy of differentiation, and its positioning compared to its direct competitors, including its marketing strategy.

General background
The Benetton Group starts as a small Italian family business, made of four brothers and sisters. In the early 1960s, Giuliana Benetton, Luciano’s sister, knits so much and well that they decide to start a small business of handmade sweaters. Whiles she knits woollen models (demarcating itself from the time’s trend for acrylic) and outsources manufacturing, he performs the function of sales representative. To add value and differentiation to their products, Luciano goes to England to study a technique of dyeing and bleaching after the clothes have been knit (called delayed