Just hours before their major fashion show in Shanghai was scheduled to start, Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana canceled the event after facing extensive backlash for recent promotional videos and Instagram messages.
As part of the campaign to promote the fashion show, the company released a series videos featuring an Asian model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks. After, private messages containing derogatory remarks allegedly sent by co-founder Stefano Gabbana were leaked. Gabbana denies the messages and insists his account was hacked.
Celebrities and models urged customers to boycott the luxury brand calling the latest videos and messages “racist” and “disrespectful.”
Can Dolce & Gabbana overcome this PR disaster? CEO Andy Gilman gives his advice in the CNN article, “Why Dolce & Gabbana’s China blunder could be such a disaster.”
“It’s not going to happen overnight,” said Andrew Gilman, founder of the crisis communications firm CommCore Consulting Group. The brand will have to “find the biggest influencers they can … [and] get back in their good graces,” he said.
The company must also share a consistent message across its social media platforms and any other channels it uses to communicate with customers, he said.
Moving forward, it will have to do a better job of understanding Chinese culture. “You can be a global brand,” Gilman said, “but you have to have local sensitivities.”