The United Colors of Benetton has released teasers in preparation for the launch of  IT’S:MY:TIME, a global casting competition designed to recruit models through user-voted video auditions to take part in an autumn-winter season shoot.

The project will launch globally on February 8th, with the brand’s website acting as a hub for entries until the closing date at the end of March. People are invited to share their style and personality through videos or photographs that can be uploaded to the site, Benetton’s YouTube page or even in-store. Twenty finalists will be chosen by the general public and a selected panel, then taken to New York to be photographed for the company’s next catalogue.

Benetton will also be releasing a series of print ads and publications containing black and white codes, which will integrate an augmented reality aspect to the project when a reader visits the main website and holds up the page to their screen via a webcam.

Towards the end of last year, Benetton used augmented reality in its own publication called ‘Colors 76 – Teenagers‘. The team at Frabrica (Benetton’s in-house comms and research division) said that the digital investment is to “sustain the soaring freedom of ideas and imagination.”

We’ve pointed at several great integrated campaigns with strong offline and online presence recently, and Benetton’s attempt seems to – for the most part – be ticking all of the boxes and doing the right things. Its Facebook profile is a little disappointing though, which no recent posts or updates, and just a bland link to the new campaign. This is only one channel used to communicate with its intended audience of course, but one that could be so much more lucrative if the brand put a bit more time into it.

IT’S:MY:TIME places control in the hands of user-generated voting to celebrate the individual. This makes sense given Benetton’s love of all things unconventional, surprising and unusual. We just hope that the brand will connect the dots enough to ensure that such a good idea is not wasted.