This is a poster for the clothing company Benetton. Benetton has used ‘global issues’ in its posters since the 1980s. It sees campaigns both as a means of advertising and as a focus for discussing the principal social and political issues of our time. Through their universal impact, the campaigns win the attention of the public and stand out from the general mass of media images. This makes for successful advertising. But their publicity attracts both controversy and acclaim, the latter in the form of advertising prizes. In 1992 Benetton began using already published documentary photography. The image of the dying AIDS activist David Kirby caused outrage, despite the fact that the photograph had already been published and Kirby’s family had given their permission. It was felt that the association of such a tragic image with the sale of jumpers was distasteful.