It is the final year of high school. We have almost completed our school career at the Koningin Wilhelmina College in Culemborg. Having written loads of reviews, reports and essay’s, we have now come to the point where it all comes together: The final paper.

 

During these six years of high school we have evolved from young and temerarious teenagers to independent and confident young adults. We are aware of who we are. We know our interests, strengths and weaknesses. With use of this self-assurance and the knowledge we gained over the past few years, we are now ready. Ready to complete our high school experience with a marvellous final chapter. 

 

Initially, we had decided to do our final paper about the American culture. Since we both chose for a bilingual education and have had several IB lessons about mass communication, we had created an interest in the advertising field. Adding the fact that we are both interested in the world and the many cultures it houses, it seemed a good idea to make it our topic.

 

However, things did not work out as we wanted to. Along the way we came across some difficulties and therefore we changed the subject. Because we had already gained some knowledge about the effects of advertising during our initial research, we knew that Benetton has a radical and innovative approach to advertising that has had enormous effects on the world.

 

We had found ourselves a new subject: the campaigns of United colours of Benetton. Despite the fact that Benetton is a clothing branch, it is mostly famous for its campaigns that are focused on controversial issues. Benetton feels that “The purpose of advertising is not to sell more; it has to do with the institution’s publicity, whose aim is to communicate the company’s values.” [32]

 

Looking back, we are happy we eventually chose to do our paper about the advertising of Benetton. We learned a lot and at the same time, enjoyed it. It’s a shame that we did not immediately came up with this topic, because it suited us perfectly well.

 

We were aware of the fact that this was not going to be an easy project. We needed to do our utter bests to make this work.

 

We learned a lot when spending our time on this project. We hope that this is apparent from our final paper and that it was worth the time.