UN targets business ad spend

The UN is drawing attention to famine - and Benetton

The United Nations World Food Programme is tapping the advertising spend of corporate firms in order to promote its humanitarian campaigns.

It has joined forces with the Italian clothes retailer Benetton, long-known for controversial adverts, to promote the fight against famine.

We're looking for 12 to 15 long-term lifetime corporate sponsors

Jeffery Rowland, World Food Programme

The $15m campaign will involve hundreds of billboards in 27 countries around the world showing photographs of people suffering from hunger.

"One of the reasons we became involved with Benetton was because, as a UN agency, we can't pay for advertising," Jeffery Rowland from the World Food Programme told the BBC's World Business Report.

"We wanted to use the muscle of Benetton and their advertising to really get our word out," he said.

In return for paying for all the advertising, the retailer gets its logo on the photographs.

More deals to come

"Our objective is to raise awareness about hunger and to prompt the public - so in a sense we are using Benetton to get our message out," he said.

Mr Rowland said the Food Programme would like to do similar deals with other companies.

"We're looking for 12 to 15 long-term lifetime corporate sponsors that can provide us not only with food and commodities but also with services and assistance."

But some onlookers have questioned whether a tie-up between the UN and businesses would compromise the agency.