Options
Gargoles, Paula
Study of Spanish Brands on Sustainability and Reputation in the Fashion Sector
The Power of Consumers on Social Media: A Case Study of Balenciaga’s Crisis Communication
2022-02-08
,
Gargoles, Paula
,
Grilec, Alica
,
Sejdini, Mirjana
A company’s reputation is heavily influenced by sustainability. Furthermore, the recent pandemic has made us more aware of the social dimension of sustainability. Herein, fashion brands also have a role in collaborating and generating a positive impact on society. Hence, the focus of this paper is to examine if sustainability is associated with a company’s corporate reputation among real customers. An analysis of 10 Spanish fashion brands has been conducted, measuring the impact of sustainability on their corporate reputation. Data for this study was collected by surveying 500 Spanish consumers online and quantitative analysis was performed with Partial Least Squares (PLS) v.3.2.7 software. The empirical study does not validate that sustainability positively affects the reputation of Spanish fashion brands, while companies were evaluated negatively when it came to social responsibility or enhancing society. Nevertheless, the company received positive feedback on its environmental stewardship. The other results show that reputation does have a positive effect on trust. It is the most significant direct effect that occurs in the present study. Also, trust has a positive impact on loyalty in Spanish fashion brands.
2023
,
Gargoles, Paula
,
Ambás, Gabriela
The French luxury brand, Balenciaga, recently faced its most important communication crisis. On November 16th 2022, the brand released its holiday gifting campaign featuring children surrounded by sadomasochism-inspired teddy bears/handbags and received immediate backlash from the public, who accused the brand of sexualizing children and promoting pedophilia. The outrage went viral on social media - mainly on Tiktok - with the hashtags #burnbalenciaga and #cancelbalenciaga, which have accumulated more than 300 million views. Balenciaga suffered an incalculable damage on its reputation, having two flagship stores vandalized and a viral online boycott. This investigation follows the case study methodology, by analyzing the timeline of events, the brand’s statements and response, the viral effect of the boycott on social media and the ultimate affectations that the brand underwent due to the crisis. The conclusions reveal that on one hand there are some social anethical boundaries that not even well-positioned and beloved brands can afford to cross, and that slow, unclear and unaccountable answers compose a terrible strategy of crisis management, and on the other hand, the power of consumers on social media has gained enough strength to damage brands like Balenciaga.