Over the years, the Benetton Company has repeatedly created controversy with flamboyant advertising campaigns, provocative statements and graphic pictures – what Giroux (1994: 21) described as ‘hyperventilating realism’ – on global social issues such as AIDS, war, politics, race, religion (Tinic, 1997) and, most recently, capital punishment. In effect, Benetton advertising campaigns have become a unique ‘[form] of global communication and a significant site of cultural production’ (Tinic, 1997: 4). In this paper we analyze Benetton’s 2000 ‘We on Death Row’ campaign as a site of cultural production where ideological differences between the United States and Europe are played out. More specifically, we examine the mass-mediated public discourse framing the campaign in the so-called prestige press in the United States. We examine on the discursive boundaries surrounding imported cultural forms like the Benetton advertisements, and, using the Gramscian concept of hegemony, focus on how these boundaries are established through the use of media frames. Our analysis will also demonstrate that transnational advertising is a discursive space where international relations are played out.