Signals

High-profile brand scandals have been worryingly prominent over the past 12 months. Yet, to rebuild their reputations and secure public forgiveness, these companies are increasingly finding ways to bounce back through creative campaigns.

Ashley Galina Dudarenok, an author and expert on marketing in China, shed light on why the now infamous #DGLovesChina campaign caused many Chinese consumers to boycott Dolce & Gabbana. ‘China went through 300 years of humiliation by Western powers,’ she explained. ‘That’s why they react so strongly when their new-found nationalism and home pride is being somehow attacked.’ According to Asia’s Top 1,000 Brands ranking, Dolce & Gabbana has fallen 140 places in 2019. To move past this, Dudarenok believes brands must cooperate more closely with local companies and be part of their eco-systems in order to win over customers.

This is something that Kering-owned brand Gucci has learned to navigate. Gucci executive vice-president of brand and customer engagement Robert Triefus was quizzed on the brand’s recent press scandals by Steve Stoute, the founder of culture agency Translation. In 2018, Stoute worked with Gucci to respond to the accusations of appropriation that followed the fashion house’s 2018 Cruise collection, inspired by Harlem designer and haberdasher Dapper Dan. ‘Alessandro made an item that referred to a Dapper Dan piece, which he was sued for [in the 1980s],’ said Triefus. ‘Now, 25 years later, he is inspiring luxury brands.’ To this end, Gucci opened an atelier in Harlem in partnership with Dapper Dan himself, ‘converting a press disaster into a cultural collaboration’.

LGBT+ consumers are jaded by empty, pink-washing campaigns and want brands to be allies, not just marketers. Tag Warner, CEO of Gay Times, explained that brands should avoid slapping a rainbow flag on their logo once a year, and should instead ensure LGBT+ culture is represented continuously across their internal and external operations.

Bringing its mission to the LGBT+ Terrace Stage was Posture Media, a New York-based studio of non-binary creatives. In order to encourage greater inclusivity in advertising and media, the company acts as a diversity consultant for brands such as Ace Hotel and Mastercard, creating an alternative safe space for brands to ask all the questions they want about what it means to identify as non-binary or transgender. During the session, co-founder Winter Mendelson unveiled a toolkit for understanding identity, suggesting companies can start with small actions, such as including pronouns in our email signatures.

Attendees also heard what’s next for Asia’s first – and the world’s largest – LGBT+ streaming service, GagaOoLala. With over 1,000 pieces of gay and lesbian entertainment content, the Taiwanese platform is preparing for its launch in India, before being introduced globally in 2020. ‘We’re able to have a sustainable market in Asia because LGBT+ characters in media such as Netflix are typically censored,’ said Jay Lin, CEO.

During Cannes Lions 2019, a talk by AARP on The 50+ Goldmine raised an important point – Millennials are broke, so why are brands still trying to target them? Martha Boudreau, chief communications and marketing officer at AARP, referenced a recent study by Deloitte, which found that the net worth of American Millennials has fallen by 34% since 1996, owing to factors such as higher student loans and housing costs. ‘We don’t want to admit that they are broke,’ says Leo Savage, executive creative director at Grey. ‘But we love talking about them because they represent so many values.’

The panel went on to discuss the opportunities that exist for the over-50s market, and why brands are still obsessed with winning over youth audiences. ‘There aren’t enough employees in creative roles [so] we need diversity initiatives to include age,’ explained Bozoma Saint John, chief marketing officer at Endeavor.

To see why brands should rethink the segmentation and stereotyping of older female consumers, read our recent Flat Age Women Market.