ANOTHER advertising campaign for the United Colors of Benetton began this week when Luciano Benetton, the founder of the Italian apparel company, invited Fidel Castro to become a teacher at Fabrica, a study and research center for applied arts that the company intends to build near Treviso, Italy.

In a letter to the Cuban President, Mr. Benetton said he recognized Mr. Castro's role as a revolutionary, his "idealistic vision" and "the faith in the future you instilled in millions of disillusioned and submissive people." He told Mr. Castro that the school administrators envisioned a diverse enrollment in which race and class prejudices would be eliminated and "would do our utmost to bar the privileged from being accepted."

Mr. Benetton added, "We need a 'teacher of revolution' for Fabrica."

While Benetton considers any form of communication as advertising, the letter may be a stretch. There is no mention anywhere of the 7,000 Benetton stores around the world, including two that recently opened in Havana. There is no suggestion, either, that El Presidente might look better in bright, colorful stripes than those olive green fatigues he has been wearing all these years.

In fact, the invitation has more the feel of a brash publicity stunt, given the inconceivable possibility that Mr. Castro would resign his post, accept the job and show up for work one day a continent away in suit and tie to teach the revolutionary concepts of design, photography and video.

Could it be that Mr. Benetton, a member of the Italian Senate, had a different agenda in mind when he sent the letter, such as inviting Mr. Castro to Italy so he and other capitalists could start making money in Cuba?

"Mr. Benetton does believe in the early idealism of the Cuban revolution," said Peter Fressola, the director of communications for Benetton's North American operations, which are based in New York. "But Fidel Castro has come to the end of his cycle. With the imminent end, Mr. Benetton believes he could make a real contribution."

Mr. Benetton's invitation demonstrated yet again the company philosophy that political discourse -- through advertisements or invitations -- served as well as conventional product advertising: Pushing political buttons ignites public debate, and debate often leads to social change. But even if it does not, the product name has at least become synonymous with the issue.

For Mr. Benetton, there has been no shortage of issues, which suggests he is either one of the world's leading humanists or one of the ultimate opportunists. While many Americans might laud his overture to Mr. Castro, some Cuban-Americans have been outraged over his liaison with the Cuban leader and have boycotted his products.

For the most part, the Benetton ad campaigns have used provocative photographs to dramatize a cause. The Benetton logo appears unobtrusively in a corner of each photograph.

A favorite theme is equality, with attempts to blur the racial and cultural distinctions that would separate people. Many ads have not been seen in the United States because of their stark nature, including a grid of 56 pictures that showed the genitalia of 56 men and women of all ages and one advertisement that showed a black woman breast-feeding a white baby.

Other issues have been addressed through photographs of a newborn baby still attached to its umbilical cord, a collection of brightly colored condoms, an AIDS patient at his moment of death and the landscape of a military cemetery outside Paris. These advertisements routinely appear in European publications, less so in those in North America and Britain.

In a more recent campaign, the company asked people to "empty your closets" in an effort to collect used clothes for the needy. In one advertisement, the words were printed over a picture of Mr. Benetton, who appears to be wearing only his glasses. The project resulted in the redistribution of 500 tons of clothes.

"We tend to be way out there," Mr. Fressola said. "But advertising of this kind has power to change a value system."

It is uncertain the degree to which human understanding has expanded as a result of advertising strategies that reflect Mr. Benetton's personal philosophies. To the extent they have sparked debate, they can only be regarded as a rousing success -- even if much of the debate has focused more on the strategies themselves than the issues they would highlight.