There are many advertising strategies in use today. But Benetton’s latest batch of adverts are obscene. In case you haven’t seen them, they feature world leaders kissing on the lips. The campaign has already drawn the ire of the Vatican as one of the doctored pictures shows Pope Benedict kissing an Egyptian Imam on the lips. This is not about religious figures, it’s about plain decency. Benetton says its “Unhate” campaign was aimed at fostering tolerance and “global love”.

The campaign’s fake photos feature a half-dozen purported political enemies in lip-locked embraces, including President Barack Obama and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

A Benetton spokesman confirmed to The Associated Press that the Pope-Imam ad was no longer part of the campaign, later in the day. It was pulled from its website barely an hour after being posted.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi called the ad an “unacceptable” manipulation of the pope’s likeness that offended the religious sentiments of the faithful.

Shock adverts have long been a part of Benetton’s publicity strategy, with photographer Oliviero Toscani’s famous campaigns featuring death row inmates and people dying of AIDS. These too, were in bad taste; in fact many consumers began to boycott the chain, denting its sales and overall image. Many people do not buy items from Benetton simply for that reason.

Benetton said the photos of political and religious leaders kissing were “symbolic images of reconciliation – with a touch of ironic hope and constructive provocation – to stimulate reflection on how politics, faith and ideas, when they are divergent and mutually opposed, must still lead to dialogue and mediation.”

Benetton said it was sorry that its image had offended the faithful and that as a result “we have decided with immediate effect to withdraw this image from every publication”.

But it goes deeper than that. This is a company with no scruples whatsoever, using adverts, as we have already pointed out, featuring wars, famine, AIDS patients, death row inmates, and now this. Someone must seriously have a screw loose in Benetton’s marketing department. Such ‘adverts’ are an insult to people’s intelligence.