Marketing Failure Case Study — Dolce & Gabbana as an Example

In November 2018, Dolce & Gabbana took to social media to warm up for its fashion week in Shanghai by releasing a controversial video in which Dolce & Gabbana models had extreme difficulty eating Italian food — pizza, cannoli, etc — with chopsticks while the video’s narration used a disgusting tone to explain. The video was released to widespread attention and controversy, as it was deemed to be disrespectful of traditional Chinese culture and racist, causing a huge reaction in China, where Dolce & Gabbana cancelled a fashion show scheduled for Wednesday following a boycott by celebrities and social media users, while retail websites around the country such as Jingdong and Alibaba took down Dolce & Gabbana’s products. On top of this, the situation has been further complicated by negative comments about China by Dolce & Gabbana’s designer Stefano Gabbana, which have been widely circulated online. Pressured by the situation, Dolce & Gabbana apologised and claimed that its accounts had been hacked in an attempt to save the Chinese market with this action, but it did not produce any positive trends. Dolce & Gabbana is a luxury brand of Italian origin, which is widely popular worldwide for its unique designs and baroque Mediterranean style, which is different from other luxury brands. It entered the Chinese market in 2005 and in 2018, it has 44 shops in China alone, while major e-commerce websites sell it. In its financial report for mid-2017-2018, it showed a turnover of €1.3 billion (Glyn Atwal et al.).