Assignment Case Study D&G
GE2231 Case Study
What Luxury Brands Should Learn From Dolce & Gabbana 's Hong Kong PR Disaster
One of the biggest stories of this past weekend in Hong Kong was a massive, Facebook-organized protest of the Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana, after a security guard prevented locals from taking photographs outside of its flagship store in Tsim Sha Tsui. Checking into the story, a photographer from the Apple Daily reported on January 5, 2012 that he was told by a security guard that only mainland Chinese or foreign tourists were allowed to take photos outside the store, with another guard allegedly threatening to break his camera. Within hours, the story had set off a firestorm of criticism in the city, with angry Hong Kong locals taking to Facebook to speak out about what they saw as tantamount to discrimination, leaving hundreds of messages on Dolce & Gabbana’s wall demanding the brand apologize or pack up and leave Hong Kong altogether.
Over the weekend, more Facebook users in Hong Kong joined together to organize a protest of Dolce & Gabbana’s Tsim Sha Tsui flagship, creating a “10,000 People Photograph D&G Event” page now “liked” by nearly 20,000 fans. Around 1,000 protestors actually took to the streets yesterday. According to Hong Kong Standard, the protest turnout was so great that the store was forced to shut its doors before 3:00 p.m. as the crowd gathered, with other shops nearby closing early as well as crowd spilling over. Protesters carried cameras and snapped photographs of the store as others held placards denouncing the photo ban and demanding an apology from D&G. Despite the massive turnout, as of last night Dolce & Gabbana had only issued a terse, unsigned statement rather than an apology, reading, “We wish to underline that our company has not taken part in any action aiming at offending the Hong Kong public.”
This is unlikely to assuage the protesters’ anger in any way. As the HK Standard notes today, rumors
What Luxury Brands Should Learn From Dolce & Gabbana 's Hong Kong PR Disaster
One of the biggest stories of this past weekend in Hong Kong was a massive, Facebook-organized protest of the Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana, after a security guard prevented locals from taking photographs outside of its flagship store in Tsim Sha Tsui. Checking into the story, a photographer from the Apple Daily reported on January 5, 2012 that he was told by a security guard that only mainland Chinese or foreign tourists were allowed to take photos outside the store, with another guard allegedly threatening to break his camera. Within hours, the story had set off a firestorm of criticism in the city, with angry Hong Kong locals taking to Facebook to speak out about what they saw as tantamount to discrimination, leaving hundreds of messages on Dolce & Gabbana’s wall demanding the brand apologize or pack up and leave Hong Kong altogether.
Over the weekend, more Facebook users in Hong Kong joined together to organize a protest of Dolce & Gabbana’s Tsim Sha Tsui flagship, creating a “10,000 People Photograph D&G Event” page now “liked” by nearly 20,000 fans. Around 1,000 protestors actually took to the streets yesterday. According to Hong Kong Standard, the protest turnout was so great that the store was forced to shut its doors before 3:00 p.m. as the crowd gathered, with other shops nearby closing early as well as crowd spilling over. Protesters carried cameras and snapped photographs of the store as others held placards denouncing the photo ban and demanding an apology from D&G. Despite the massive turnout, as of last night Dolce & Gabbana had only issued a terse, unsigned statement rather than an apology, reading, “We wish to underline that our company has not taken part in any action aiming at offending the Hong Kong public.”
This is unlikely to assuage the protesters’ anger in any way. As the HK Standard notes today, rumors