Marketing in the News

D&G Marketing problem

The Dolce & Gabbana Italian fashion company has recently subjected itself to a clash across the Chinese social media after posting an advert on the Instagram that portrayed a Chinese model as a demeaning stereotype. What attracted my attention is the two-minute video that presented the woman struggling to eat pizza, cannoli, and pasta using Chinese chopsticks, something that seems impossible as I picture it. Moreover, having the male voice in the background as it instructs the model on how to use the chopsticks, the video presents a sense of drama.

The advertisement features an Asian lady dressed in a lavish D&G dress attempting to eat the cannoli, pizza, and pasta. For the Chinese musical background, a male voice jumps in and says “Welcome to the first episode of ‘Eating with Chopsticks’ by Dolce & Gabbana” it was mispronounced to mock the Chinese speech (Xu).

The male voice continues to mock the model as she hardly knows how to eat the large cannoli with the two chopsticks. The voice says, “is it too big for you?” From this context, it shows explicit racism as commented by one individual on Weibo. The D&G stereotyping China through the videos only shows that the brand is outdated from the perspective of China. Therefore, if the D&G Company is not kicked out of China, it suggests that many foreign brands would trample Chinese dignity (Xu). The D&G brand had a hidden intention of downgrading the Chinese culture through the video adverts.

The situation worsened when Stefano defended the video by referring to the Chinese citizens as “ignorant dirty mafias” and depicting that we eat dogs. The video elucidates significant issues regarding the white neo-colonialist who desires to embezzle China’s wealth (Zhang). Also, degrading how the Asian women portray themselves and how we do not understand orientalism, which meant “the way the West perceives and proceeds to define the East.”

Seemingly, the D&G brand is under crisis, and the management experienced a lack of control. Nevertheless, many people resisted the advert with the aim to boycott the company. Within two hours from the time the ad was posted, the models who planned to walk in the runways withdrew from the activity, and the D&G brand ambassador, Junkai Wang, canceled the deal with D&G. 

The D&G brand experienced challenges since all the online Chinese Shopping outlets removed the products that had the brand. The show that D&G was to conduct on the 21st of November was canceled, and the earlier posts about the D&G having a great show were all removed (Xu). The retailer ‘Lane Crawford’ in Hong Kong halted the D&G product sale both in the online platform and in stores the moment the customers started returning D&G products.

If I were the manager of the D&G brand, I would recommend using the SMART marketing objective. I would encourage specificity, use of measurable claims, appropriate actions to improve the performance of the brand, providing relevant information based on research, and setting the objectives in different periods as reviewed by the target market. Moreover, implementing the SMART technique through various channels that meet the demands of the Chinese citizens will be a competitive strategy.

The market approach that D&G used was inappropriate. In fact, it violated the dignity of the Chinese and our culture. In essence, the designer of the brand made a wrong call, when he went on to degrade the culture of the Chinese people and to call them ignorant. He could use an approach that was somewhat influential in attracting the customers into buying the products. From the context, I learned that not all Chinese companies support the Chinese culture, not because they believe that Chinese citizens are actual beings but because they want to earn more from the countrymen while at the same time significantly provoking their dignity.

Xu, Yuhan. "NPR Choice Page." Npr.org. N.p., 2018. Web. 3 Dec. 2018.

Zhang, Muqing. "'Dolce & Gabbana's Cancelled Chopsticks Advert Shows Us Orientalism Is Finally Being Taken Seriously As A Form Of Racism.'" The Independent. N.p., 2018. Web. 3 Dec. 2018.