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BEIJING – Do not play with China and its growing group of powerful luxury consumers.
Dolce & Gabbana learned the lesson the hard way when he had to face a boycott after the Chinese expressed outrage at what was perceived as culturally insensitive videos promoting a grand parade in Shanghai and Subsequent comments in a private chat on Instagram.
The company blamed hackers for anti-Chinese insults, but the explanation seemed flat for many and the harm was done. The Milanese designers canceled the Shanghai parade, intended to pay homage to China, as their list of Asian celebrity guests had quickly joined the protests.
Then, as retailers pulled their goods off the shelves and powerful e-commerce sites removed their wares, co-founders Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana walked past a camera, against a background of a big red wall, to apologize to the public. Chinese. .
"We will never forget this experience, and it will certainly not happen again," said Gabbana, a man with a solemn face, in a video statement released Friday on social media.
The video of excuses and the strong reaction of the public who demanded it show the importance of the Chinese market and the risks related to its exploitation. More generally, it highlights the enormous and ever-growing influence of China, a country that can not be ignored by its economic, military and diplomatic expansion.
These trends are intimately linked in the frequent outbursts of nationalist sentiment among consumers who feel offended by foreign brands or their governments. This is not the first time that a company apologizes and this will surely not be the last. Mercedes-Benz did it in February for quoting a quote from the Dalai Lama on his Instagram account.
For Dolce & Gabbana, this could mark the end of its growth in China, a crucial market for global luxury brands it has cultivated since the opening of its first store in 2005 and where it now has 44 stores.
"I think it will be impossible for them to work in China over the next two years," said Cary Cooper, a professor of organizational psychology and health at the University of Manchester in England. "When you break this type of cultural code, you have problems, the brand is now damaged in China, and I think it will be damaged as well, waiting for the memory to be lost."
London-based consultancy Brand Finance estimates that the scandal could erase up to 20% of Dolce & Gabbana's $ 937 million worth, which already places it among the top 50 clothing brands in the world. They rank at the 36th rank of Italian brands and extend to sectors such as the automobile.
This could undermine Dolce & Gabbana's financial health. The private company does not publish its individual sales figures. According to a recent study by the consulting firm Bain, Chinese consumers are responsible for one-third of luxury spending in the world. This figure will reach 46% of sales forecasts, estimated at 365 billion euros, by 2025, thanks to millennials and the younger generation Z, who will buy an increasing percentage of their online purchases.
"Without China, the hinterland of growth, D & G will obviously be in a weak competitive position and risk being eliminated," said Sunday the Chinese economic magazine New Fortune in an article published on social media. "This is one of the main reasons why D & G has finally dropped their heads – they can not really survive without the Chinese market."
While Dolce & Gabbana has demonstrated his talent for engaging in social media, inviting millennial influencers with millions of collective followers to sit at their forefront or to participate in their shows this commitment has been a double-edged sword. Idol of pop Karry Wang, who drew hundreds of Chinese fans shouting into the designer's showroom in Milan, was one of the first to disavow the brand, claiming that 39, he ended his role as brand ambassador for the Asia-Pacific.
Dolce's was found on the defensive several years ago after Elton John got into comments suggesting that he was not supportive of gay couples using surrogates to have kids. At the time, more than 67,000 tweets urged #boycottdolcegabbana, while Courtney Love promised to burn her Dolce & Gabbana costume and that Martina Navratilova pledged to get rid of her D & G shirt .
Gabbana, which has 1.6 million subscribers on Instagram, faced a more contained response earlier this year when he responded to a collage of Selena Gomez's photos on Instagram with the following comment: "She's really ugly."
Celebrities took Wednesday on social media to explode Dolce & Gabbana and announced that they would boycott the show, which was canceled. On Thursday, the company's products had disappeared from leading e-commerce websites. The dominant sentiment was captured by an airport duty-free shop that released a photo of its empty D & G product shelves: "We have to show our position. We are proud to be Chinese."
The rapid escalation in a public relations disaster has been fueled by social media. Individuals posted videos about themselves cutting or burning their Dolce & Gabbana clothes or picking them up with chopsticks and throwing them in the trash. A parody of the shocking videos of Dolce & Gabbana, in which a Chinese woman uses chopsticks to eat pizza and oversized cannoli, shows a white man eating Chinese food with a fork and a knife. At least three rap groups have taken up the cause with new songs.
"Companies that do not respect us do not deserve our respect," said Wang Zixin, head of the CD Rev team, a nationalist rap group from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province. His new song had been seen more than 850,000 times on Weibo.
"We hope people will remember companies that have already insulted China and that they will not forget them once the consequences resonate," Wang said.
This sense of pride reflects a nationalism encouraged by the government, often as a result of disputes between China and other countries about other foreign products.
Sales by Japanese automakers fell in 2012 due to tensions between the two islands claimed by the East China Sea. The confrontation also highlighted the complexity of the Chinese sentiment: industry analysts said buyers did not want to be seen in Japanese auto showrooms but had made the planned purchases once the tensions were gone.
More recently, several foreign companies have violated Beijing's insistence to make explicit reference to Taiwan, an autonomous territory, part of China. Many have obeyed, which shows how important the Chinese market has become.
Delta, American and other airlines have agreed to refer to Taiwan as part of China. Zara is now saying "Taiwan, China" on her website after regulators blamed the fashion brand for calling Taiwan a country. Marriott announced that it "respected and supported" China's sovereignty after receiving orders to close its China website for a week.
Actor Richard Gere, a supporter of the Dalai Lama, told the Hollywood Reporter that movie studios were reluctant to hire him for fear of an official or public failure that could hurt ticket sales in China.
It is unclear whether the video of D & G mea culpa will end the backlash – or whether it will have consequences for the whole of Italian society. The scandal erupted as Italian high-end furniture and design companies made an annual presentation in Shanghai and Miu Miu, Prada's small sister line, showed its cruise company in Shanghai.
Italian designers have so far refrained from commenting. Dolce & Gabbana has remained remarkably outside the Italian Fashion Chamber, which organizes fashion weeks and acts as a lobby for the fashion sector.
Brand Finance luxury specialist Alex Haigh said the scale of the Chinese reaction may be contagious in other markets, but that the brand could outpace the scandal if it makes a sincere change. "They had a big storm," he said. "They have to wait a few months, or even do something similar to Volkswagen, when the emissions scandal has been imposed on it and it's repositioned as a more environmentally friendly brand for electric vehicles – these problems can sometimes be a central element of change. "
Italian commentators wondered if the demonstrations at Dolce & Gabbana were really spontaneous or if there was some governmental control. The government has stated publicly that the post has no diplomatic element and would not comment.
"Everywhere in the world, an entrepreneur can make a mistake, use inappropriate language.It is usually the consumers and the market that decide the seriousness of the offense," writes the daily corriere della Sera of Milan in a comment . "It is only in China that we are forced to produce a humiliating video with public self-criticism, as in the days of the Mao revolution." , China feels powerful and applies reeducation on a global scale. "
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Barry brought back from Milan. AP reporters Joe McDonald and Dake Kang and researchers Henry Hou and Jiawei Chen contributed to this report.
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