According to The Post, industry professionals were informed that Balenciaga may experience significant financial losses and enduring harm to its highly sought-after reputation due to a controversial advertising campaign featuring children holding teddy bears dressed in explicit bondage attire, all promoting the high-end luxury brand.
The Spanish fashion brand later took legal action against the producers and withdrew the ads, attributing the inappropriate visuals to them. The controversy arose last week when the brand expressed regret for the offensive campaign.
The Article informs specialists that Balenciaga, possessed by the French extravagance behemoth Kering, which additionally claims Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Bottega Veneta, will probably experience a decline in its financial performance due to its inadequate discernment, despite its efforts to rectify the consequences through terminations and attributing blame.
The Post informed Pam Danziger, an expert in luxury marketing, saying “I honestly cannot comprehend how they can justify their actions.” In the end, I believe this will greatly affect the reputation of the brand.
Established in 1919 in San Sebastian, Spain, by Cristobal Balenciaga, the renowned fashion label is thought by Danziger to have probably caused significant personnel changes, she remarked.
Danziger stated, “This was a deliberate communication. I believe that it won’t be the stylists or the photographers who will bear the consequences, and there will be someone who will trust it.”
“You should avoid aiming to please. You will never succeed if your goal is to please, as fear inhibits creativity, and the utmost essential attribute is the absence of fear. In October, he expressed to Vogue, “Fashion should not aim to please.” Demna Gvasalia, the creative director of Balenciaga, is renowned for pushing boundaries.”
Experts are also questioning Balenciaga’s claim that the approved ads never depicted a messy desk strewn with papers, including a Supreme Court decision, and a recent ad for a purse, which, according to eagle-eyed social media investigators, contained child pornography.
Gary Wassner, the CEO of Hilldun Corp., A company that provides loans to the fashion industry, expressed that “this alone indicates a deficient internal system of oversight, regardless of the unlikely possibility that these advertisements were not approved by individuals with authority at Balenciaga.”
Wassner stated, “By including children, they took provocation to an extreme.” It is common for everyone to unintentionally harm innocent children. Once the advertisements are released, there is no way to undo the consequences.
Experts have stated that Kering, the proprietor of Balenciaga, is unlikely to reveal whether its sales were impacted. It is still too early to determine the complete magnitude of the public relations disaster.
However, other fashion brands crossed a line in 2018, including Dolce & Gabbana, by depicting a struggling model who spoke with an exaggerated Chinese accent and struggled to use chopsticks, which resulted in a backlash against them in China. According to experts, an insufficient apology will be.
“When Dolce screwed up in China with inappropriate content, the impact was enormous financially,” Wassner said. “Their ad was insulting and discriminatory.”.
Several days after its fashion show in Shanghai, the D&G brand canceled the released ads. The products were removed from e-commerce sites and stores, and the influencers posted images of themselves destroying the brand’s ad on social media.
According to a CNN report, Dolce & Gabbana had not yet recovered from the debacle as of last year. The privately owned Italian fashion house claimed that the ads were “unauthorized” and apologized for them, but still had to close some stores.