Balenciaga Campaign
In November I began seeing Tik-Toks surrounding the new Balenciaga holiday campaign. Quickly, gossip about the ad campaign made its way to Twitter and Youtube. I started to notice its uniqueness when Youtubers I watch, began discussing it and adding #cancelBalenciaga to their social media captions. The ad campaign featured young kids holding a teddy bear in bondage harnesses and costumes. Later in the month, a collaboration with Adidas and Fashion House dropped a bag. In their advertisement, photographs of what appeared to be documents from the Supreme Court case United States v. Williams, a ruling which upheld the PROTECT Act, which increased federal protections against child pornography. Balenciaga was quick to release a public apology for their actions and a $25 million lawsuit against the producers of the campaign. Balenciaga has received negative publicity and their stock has decreased amid the scandal.
Balenciaga has been known to have a unique fashion style; their clothes are often big and bulky with a goth look. They focus mainly on women's fashion and were thought to be very innovative; such as the “ballroom hems” in the early 1950’s, the “semi-fit” lines of the mid-50s and the idea of “sack dress” in 1957.
Shockvertising is a marketing technique used to create a shock value in marketing ads. This is usually done with very controversial topics or pictures. Urban consumers see over 100 ads a day and only remember about 2 or three of them. Shockvertising makes it to where those two or three ads remembered will be talked about and spread the brands name. The Balenciaga scandal has been used as a headline grabber for news outlets such as Fox news. Not only does this bring attention to the brand, it also creates notoriety for photographers. Gabriele Galimberti photographed many of the photos used in the Balenciaga campaign and has since gained attention. Whether they receive good or bad reviews they still achieve a goal of being in the news and getting talked about. This point is proven just by the fact that I am writing about it for a marketing class. Balenciaga went into crisis management by issuing a public apology which mainly put the blame on the producers. Also by having models of the brand post to their social media accounts apologizing and asking for people's opinions and reactions. Protesters of the brand spray painted stick figure children on the walls with phrases like, “Not 4 sex” and “Children R not sexual objects.” Naturally Balenciaga has had to deal with the repercussions and overcome the adversity surrounding the campaign.
This marketing approach is extremely unique. Not in a good way but it did draw lots of attention which I believe was their strategy. I don't believe this ad was appealing to any consumers. Balenciaga stated, “We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused. Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms,” which was posted on Forbes.
If I was the product manager I would not have let this ad run. I don't see the harm in allowing children to be models. However, I would not have had the teddy bear in bondage clothing and definitely would not have had any court documents on the ground. Teddy bears and children are seen as innocent creatures so I would have shown them in such a way.
I learned how far brands are willing to go to get publicity. During my research I learned new marketing terms which are used to describe relevance in campaigns.
https://www.thecut.com/2022/12/what-to-know-about-the-balenciaga-ad-scandal.html
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