Learning Luxury Brand Gucci Crisis Public Relations: Saving Brand Image

When the crisis broke out, the public's trust in the enterprise was destroyed. When questioned, the discourse of the enterprise clarified the importance of reversing public awareness and could not change the established attitude of the public.

In order to win public trust, enterprises must take corresponding actions at the first time, so that the enterprises in question can be suspended or pparent, so that the public can see the real changes or actions of enterprises.

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In September 23, 2011, two former Gucci employees sent an online letter of "Gucci employees who resigned from the collective resignation to Gucci's top management." after being reported by the media, Gucci began to be labeled "sweatshops", "maltreated employees", and "management".

In the open letter of Gucci's resignation staff, they accused Shenzhen's flagship store of Gucci's inhuman management of the mainland employees: to apply for water, to report to the toilet, to stay at a station for more than ten hours, and to eat 8 apples would be fired. After work, they should continue to work until 2 or 3 in the morning without overtime pay.

Such harsh rules make them reprimand Shenzhen Gucci flagship store as "sweatshop".

Once the public letter was published, it was widely exposed by many media.

For a while, Gucci's corporate image fell to the bottom and plunged into a serious corporate reputation crisis.

In the era of pparency, corporate reputation is more important than everything.

As a first-rate luxury brand, Gucci always has a good reputation in the Chinese market. Its high price, exquisite quality and noble taste have molded Gucci's high, precise and sharp product positioning, created the brand's honor and won the admiration of consumers.

However, the "abusing incident" has to let the public reconsider the brand: is a company with high standard of products also has a rich corporate culture conformed with it, is it enough to carry the trust of consumers?

Today's society is located in a pparent era. The market competition environment is complicated, the awareness of consumers' rights and interests is improved, the media activities are frequent and the supervision function is prominent.

From products, services, internal management, enterprise construction, all of them are exposed to the observation and supervision of tactile sensitive public and media.

Therefore, the elements that constitute the corporate image are more diverse, and the consumers' evaluation criteria for enterprises also have a richer dimension.

Any part of the problem may cause a serious blow to the image and reputation of the company and affect the position of the enterprise and its products in the minds of consumers.

Gucci's crisis is not caused by product quality, but by the drawbacks of internal management.

The confusion of internal management and the inhumane treatment of employees are contrasting sharply with the bright appearance of Gucci as a luxury first-line brand. By borrowing the resignation staff, it is like "a gorgeous robe full of lice", which greatly reverses Gucci's gorgeous and honorable image in the minds of consumers, and its reputation has been severely damaged.

This consequence is likely to have a negative impact on enterprise development and even product sales.

In the era of pparency, corporate reputation is more important than everything.

Therefore, it is urgent to carry out crisis management.

The core of crisis management is communication, not fire fighting.

The exposure of the "abused labor incident" is a blow to Gucci, which has caused serious damage to the brand image of the company.

After the crisis, Gucci immediately launched public relations measures to deal with the crisis.

First, from the top to the general staff, the media were sealed together. Later, a statement was made that the matter was magnified and distorted by the media, and the corresponding public relations measures were launched to deal with negative reports from the media.

All means are aimed at preventing the spread of negative information and worsening the situation, while trying to isolate the masses from the truth.

Its public relations can be summarized as "blocking".

However, Gucci's "blocking" crisis management did not make any improvement in the situation. On the contrary, the media still carried out a large area of negative tracking reports. The public's doubts and dissatisfaction on Gucci continued to be intense, and the government departments began to intervene in the investigation.

Gucci has been caught in the siege of all parties.

In fact, Gucci's response to this crisis has distorted the core role of crisis public relations.

The more important role of crisis public relations is to communicate with stakeholders, rebuild the chain of trust, rather than seal up or cover up negative reports.

Only when we know the real demands of stakeholders and fundamentally solve them can we stop the recurrence of problems, clear up the stumbling blocks in the development process of enterprises, build a more solid foundation for the building of corporate identity, and build a chain of trust between enterprises and stakeholders.

Sealing or covering up negative reports is like putting up a baffle in the river course when flood occurs. Sooner or later, it will burst a levee, which will not only solve the problem, but also bury deeper hidden dangers.

Therefore, the right way for Gucci is to get relevant interest demands in time, listen to employees' voices, reflect on the loopholes in the management process, and face the media and the public at the same time.

In this way, "Tong" is "smooth".

Communication channels, things to solve, the path of enterprise development can be smooth.

Three enlightenments from Gucci's crisis management

As a well-known luxury brand, Gucci has been rooted in China's market soil for many years, and has made a splendid flower.

A large number of consumer groups enjoy a high reputation. The development of Gucci in the Chinese market is showing a trend of development. However, it has encountered the crisis. The malpractice of the internal management of enterprises has been exposed to the public view.

Is Gucci's problem universal? Is there a similar problem for foreign enterprises similar to Gucci?

From the Gucci crisis, we can actually discern the inspiration it brings to the management of foreign enterprises.

1, strengthen internal communication and establish direct dialogue channels between employees and senior managers.

In today's times, big countries compete with each other in comprehensive national strength; from small to enterprise, they are the competition of comprehensive strength.

The comprehensive strength of an enterprise is not only reflected in product quality and service level, but also in the level of internal management.

Good corporate management depends not only on strict rules and regulations, but also on good internal communication. For example, in the formulation of rules and regulations, it is necessary to negotiate between enterprises and workers, establish a smooth channel for employees' appeals, and open channels for direct dialogue between employees and senior executives.

However, unlike the domestic enterprises, the internal communication problems faced by foreign enterprises are more complex. There are more organizational levels in their enterprises, and there are also particularity in the employment system. The core organizations of enterprises are unable to manage the large number of dispatched units and dispatched workers effectively and uniformly.

In this regard, foreign enterprises should establish a more perfect management system, standardize internal management methods and staff appeal system, so that employees' discourse can be known by top executives, thus providing important support for enterprise decision-making.

The internal communication of an enterprise is like the blood of a human body. Only by means of effective and smooth channels can the life and vitality be maintained.

2, the management of enterprises in different regions should be in line with each other.

Internationally famous brand enterprises are the pronoun of humanity and standardization in developed countries. However, when they come to the developing countries represented by China, they change to the face of "sweatshops" and make a big change.

This kind of "orange producing Huainan is orange, and born in Huaibei is a trifoliate orange" is really doubtful. This difference of pnational enterprises' "differentiated" management route has also been criticized by the public.

In fact, back in the past, as early as February 2008, dozens of luxury brands, including Gucci, were reported by the media about the fact that they employed Chinese laborers but only paid them and had low wages and bad working conditions.

In the 7-8 month of this year, the brand Converse and fast fashion ZARA of sports brand NIKE have also been exposed to the scandal of "abusing workers".

A famous brand enterprise like Gucci has established a relatively perfect management system in its own country, and has formed a relatively perfect system in terms of humanized management, employee welfare protection, communication channels between employees and enterprises, consultation mechanism and so on. Trade unions play an important role in enterprises.

In China, however, the situation is quite different.

In view of the reasons, in addition to the different social environment and system restriction scope and intensity of different countries, enterprises should also reflect on their own behavior, adopt an equal attitude and establish a humanized enterprise, so as to win the respect and trust of consumers in different markets.

3, crisis management: action is better than clarification.

In the process of crisis management, enterprises often commit a common problem, that is, after the outbreak of crisis, they are eager to clarify the facts or list the truth, trying to change the direction of the media and the public's cognition with their own words.

However, this method does not necessarily achieve its original purpose and does not necessarily work for reversing the crisis.

Corporate clarification or truth enumeration is more easily interpreted by the public as a pretext for its own fault, which results in a denying effect.

To get rid of this common disease, we must first find out what a concept is and what is the truth. In the media environment where there is a fixed distance between the enterprise and the public, the public often can not directly contact the fact that the truth is reflected.

Only the fact that the public believes is the truth. What is not believed is not the truth.

Therefore, the truth is sometimes not the fact itself, but the public's trust.

When the crisis broke out, the public's trust in the enterprise was destroyed. When questioned, the discourse of the enterprise clarified the importance of reversing public awareness and could not change the established attitude of the public.

In order to win public trust, enterprises must take corresponding actions at the first time, so that the enterprises in question can be suspended or pparent, so that the public can see the real changes or actions of enterprises.

When the internal management of enterprises is being questioned, enterprise managers should promptly find loopholes in management, correct them, improve their own rules and regulations, and give employees more reasonable protection and more humane treatment.

Only by taking practical actions can the crisis be eradicated and the corporate image can be fundamentally reversed.