Sticks and stones may break my....brand?

How it all started...

To advertise the show that was supposed to take place on November 21^st  (2018) in Shanghai, Dolce & Gabbana posted on November 17^th a video on Instagram and Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, depicting an Asian model trying to eat Italian food with chopsticks. Weibo users felt insulted and started criticizing the video, saying the video was racist and offensive to Chinese culture. After 24 hours, feeling pressured, the label took down the video.

From bad to worst

Like this was not enough, the anger continued after some screenshots surfaced that were portraying some displeasing messages from Stefano Gabbana, co-founder of the brand.  As a result, Chinese celebrities distanced themselves from the brand, saying they will not continue their collaboration with D&G. Furthermore, Chinese e-commerce luxury sites removed D&G’s products the next day. As a response, the brand claimed that both, the official D&G account and Stefano’s private account were hacked. Consequently, the brand had to cancel the show.         

On November 23^rd, that is almost one week after the outburst, Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce posted a video in which they apologized.

I am sure they did not expect this reaction, but nowadays, with the help of social media platforms consumers/ customers can reflect publicly on the moral standards of companies (Jackson & Moloney, 2019), and nothing can stop them! Moreover, respected publications reported on the matter referring to the brand in a negative way. The way news are framed can directly influence what enters the minds of the audience members (Nijkrake, Gosselt, & Gutteling, 2015). According to Nijkrake, Gosselt, and Gutteling (2015) there are five dominant news frames (conflict, economic, consequences, responsibility, and human-interest). In the case of Dolce and Gabbana, journalists used the human-interest and responsibility frame. The human-interest frame portrays an event in an emotional and personal way, and when talking about racism how can it be not personal and emotional?! The responsibility frame is used when an individual, or in this case a company, is held responsible for the causes of an event. And let’s be honest, D&G is fully responsible for making, posting and all the repercussions that followed that video.  

The Washington Post reported:

“In a span of five days, the Milan fashion house swung from preparing a historic Shanghai extravaganza — billed as a no-expense-spared tribute to Chinese culture and the biggest runway event in label history — to pleading for forgiveness, its reputation shredded in a country that accounts for more than a third of luxury spending worldwide.”

Financial Times reported:

“The incident is a terrifying example for executives of what can happen when the furies of social media are released. Greater China accounts for a third of global luxury sales and about a third of Dolce & Gabbana’s €1.3bn in annual revenues.”

How they handled the situation…

Their first reaction was only when the screenshots surfaced on the Internet and the company adopted a defensive strategy, saying someone hacked their accounts. According to Kim and Park (2017), organizations use defensive strategies when trying to deny responsibility for the crisis, which in this case is inadmissible and reflects poorly on the brand. On the other hand, when they realized people were not going to let this go so easily, especially because they did not address the matter like they were supposed to, the two D&G founders released a video in which they apologized AFTER 5 DAYS. As stated by van der Meer, Verhoeven, Beentjes, and Vliegenthart (2017), companies allow the crisis to grow when failing to respond to the power and speed of online news media, which is exactly what happened. With the apology, D&G used an accommodative strategy, accepting responsibility, which they should’ve done from the start. Related to this, research has shown that accommodative strategies, namely apologies, should be adopted by crisis managers without regard to crisis responsibility to restore the brand’s reputation (Kim & Park, 2017). 

For future crises,

First, brands have to study in depth the values related to a specific culture and make sure they do not insult that culture in any way. Second, take responsibility if things do not go the way you intended, and do it as quick as you can! 

About the author:

Alexandra Smigelschi is a master student at University of Amsterdam. She studies communication science, more specifically the persuasive communication track. She was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania, where she also finished her bachelor in International relations.