Dior Faces Reputational Crisis in China, Still Yet to Apologize Fully.
Dior, the French company, has now joined the growing list of Western-based luxury brands that have been hitting the social media headlines over what would be considered as “silly” mistakes. In a recent presentation at a local Chinese university, Dior excluded Taiwan from a map representing China. Although Taiwan remains a self-ruling part of China, the Chinese communist government claims sovereignty over Taiwan under its “One China “policy. Such a mistake is now seen as an abuse to the sovereignty of China, a common error by Western brands including Versace, NBA ,and Coach which have also recently been under backlash over the same mistake.
Background
The Chinese citizens form part of the world’s largest consumers of luxury goods including clothing and electronics. Globally, Chinese shoppers make up a third of the luxury purchases. Underlying this fact, more than a third of Dior’s revenues in 2018 came from Asia and the largest chunk from China. The mistake by Dior, after numerous Western brands did the same in the past, seems like sheer ignorance on the part of the brand. Questions lingering in the mind of Chinese consumers is whether these Western brands ever learn. And if they do, what will it take? Total boycotts?
Social Media Backlash.
Although the presentation happened in a recruitment session at Zhejiang Gongshang University, it made its way online in less than an hour after the session. A video shared in Chinese social media Weibo and Wechat by students, shows a student asking a Dior employee why the map of China in the presentation does not show Taiwan. The Dior employee, obviously shrugging off the natter as minute, answers that the map is too small to show specific regions. Interestingly, the map clearly shows Hainan which is smaller in size than Taiwan. In the first day, the video shared online garnered more than 1 million views on Weibo. The video was quickly shared through social media ridiculing the company and within two days, the hashtag, “Dior statement” was the most trending in Weibo with over 260 million views. So far, the topic is still among the top ten-trending in Chinese social media and has now attracted the attention of Western international media including Reuters,CNN, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and BBC News.
Daft Apology?
After realizing the mistake they made, Dior made an attempt at an apology that has since made the matter worse. In the apology, the company blames one of their employees for making the mistake and reiterates that the message that the map sends is not what the company intended. Besides, they also argued that the recruitment was done in various campuses, yet only students of Zhejiang Gongshang were concerned about the map. This statement in the apology seems to suggest that the students who asked the bold question were petty since thousands of others in different campuses showed no concern. While the apology should have cooled down the social media backlash, it only served to fuel the fire and now the company’s reputation is at stake.
Verdict.
Although Dior made an apology timely; within hours of realizing the mistake, their apology was wrongly worded and sounded defensive. A claim that only students of one university had an issue with the map while others cared less, increased the attention towards the video. The fact that the topic was trending a day after the apology with over 260 million views on Weibo shows how an issue considered minute by Dior executives quickly escalated. The defensive response arguing that a mistake by a single employee doesn’t represent the entire company was also poor. This ongoing backlash could have been avoided if the executives owned up the mistake and emphasized their commitment towards respecting the sovereignty of China and its people. As at October 26, 2019, the Chinese consumers are demanding that Dior makes another apology both in Chinese social media, traditional media and also the same to be done in Western media. If Dior desires to remain operational in China, their public relations team needs to move swiftly in meeting these demands and also appeasing the government which is known to kick out companies with such sentiments.
