This story really impressed me because of the way it shows
the relevance of digital media in our world and also how companies should be
really careful about this.
This all happened a little while ago with a famous shoe
store in Brazil, Arezzo. This company has over 300 stores all through Brazil,
mostly through franchises and it is considered very fashion and reasonably
upscale.
The brand launched its new winter collection on a Friday
with special events on some of its flagship stores in the main cities in
Brazil. One of the main features of the new collection was a set of products made
with real fur. The collection had boots’ interiors, scarfs and other products
made with real fur from foxes and rabbits. The company launched this new
collection making sure to advertise that the products were made with real fur
most likely to show how fashion and upscale the brand was.
Unfortunately for the brand, it was a disaster. A few hours
after the new products were launched the fuss began on the Internet.
The company was present on the Internet not only with their
own website but they also had a Twitter account and a Facebook page.
Consumers, critics, animal lovers or not, began attacking
the company both on Twitter and on Facebook. The #Arezzo was one of the top
trends on Twitter Brazil already on Friday evening and it stayed there most of
the weekend. All posts severely criticized the new collection, the brand and
the designers, many using very offensive words.
The same happened on the company’s Facebook page. Tons of
posts with harsh comments, all in the company’s own page. Hundreds of people
actually became “fans” of the brand on Facebook just to be able to insult the
company in its own “territory”.
But the worst part is that it all happened on a weekend. And
apparently there was nobody working on the company. The crisis lasted the
entire weekend without a single comment from the company. Only on Monday
afternoon the company issued a statement, first in the social networks. Arezzo apologized
and announced that it would remove all real fur products from all of its stores
even though the origin of the products was certified.
One can only imagine the financial impact of this crisis.
Link to one of the newspapers articles about this crisis
(only in Portuguese): http://www.estadao.com.br/noticias/impresso,apos-criticas-arezzo-retira-pecas-com-pele-verdadeira-das-lojas,708156,0.htm
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