Dolce & Gabbana’s brand image takes a hammering from Chinese consumers: YouGov survey
- D&G’s overall brand health score was negative among Chinese consumers in about a week after its fashion show was cancelled, according to YouGov
- It was the biggest drop in public perception of a luxury fashion brand in China since YouGov began compiling the BrandIndex in Asia about five years ago
Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana’s brand image has taken a massive beating because of its controversial advertisement and co-founder Gabbana’s crude reaction on social media to the criticism, in which he mocked China as “a country of s***”, a YouGov survey has found.
The fallout from the “racist” ad, in which a Chinese model in a red D&G dress is trying to use chopsticks to eat pizza, spaghetti and a giant version of the Italian pastry cannoli, led to the company cancelling its Shanghai fashion show amid an onslaught of criticism from Chinese celebrities and internet users.
Even Chinese online shopping platforms such a Tmall, a business-to-consumer online retail site operated by Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com, among others, removed D&G items from their websites. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
D&G has since deleted the insensitive ads from their official Instagram account. The company’s two founders also apologised in a video post saying “sorry” in Mandarin five days after the fracas first erupted.
D&G’s overall brand health score fell from +3.3 to -11.4 among Chinese consumers in about a week after the fashion show was cancelled, according to YouGov’s BrandIndex, which measures public perception of thousands of brands across dozens of sectors.
BrandIndex compiles overall brand health based on consumer feedback on quality, value, satisfaction, recommendation and reputation.
