1. Case Presentation 3rd of April 2018 Julia Beyer Charly Schulz
(Un)coolest Monkey in the Jungle Corporate Brand Management & Reputation
Case Presentation
3rd of April 2018
Julia Beyer
Charly Schulz
Hi, my name is Frida and these are my team-mates Kathi and Julia and we‘re gonna present a case which is centered around a well-known phenomenon in the fast fashion industry.
I guess, that nobody has missed this most recent example of this phenomenon and the crisis H&M is currently facing.
After many years of growth and success, H&M is facing many challenges at the moment. The stock value has decreased dramatically during the recent years, physical stores had to close due to low sales volumes and this latest ‘advertising blunder’ is not making things better. So, therefore we need your help to figure out immediate actions for H&M to mitigate the crisis, and which long-term actions are needed to prevent similar crises in the future?
During our presentation we will also highlight other fashion/advertisement controversies by other companies to illustrate this particular phenomenon further, which also makes this an evergreen case

3. Background – Main Incident
H&M 2018 “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”
Outrage on Social Media
H&M stores trashed in South Africa
Lost celebrity collaborations
Blown out of proportion?
As a part of a new collection, H&M introduced a kids’ sweatshirt with the printed text “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”. In the online advertisements, a young black boy is seen wearing the sweater, standing next to a white boy of the same age wearing another sweatshirt with the text “Survival Expert”.
A blogger shared the advert on Twitter questioning the moral judgement of H&M and thereby started a controversial discussion of the ad. The post spread like wildfire and got retweeted 14,000 times within a day, causing outrage on social media around the world.
Hence, H&M is being heavily criticised and accused of being racist.Racism is an especially sensitive topic in South Africa because of the country’s history of racial segregation and oppression of black people. As a consequence of this event, activists in South Africa reacted strongly on the ad and protested against H&M by trashing several stores.
- H&M is well-known for collaborations with celebrities and have released collections together with various fashion icons. As a result of the ‘Coolest monkey in the jungle’ ad, H&M lost several celebrity collaborations, for example The Weeknd and G-Eazy who don‘t want to be associated with the company anymore after seeing the ad.
- However, on the other side of the debate there are also people defending H&M. They claim that the case has gotten blown out of proportion, and that it is actually the people claiming H&M to be racist that are the real racists, by making the connection between black people and the monkey statement on the sweatshirt.
 So, Kathi will now continue by introducing the consequences of this incident…

4. Consequences
KATHI: here you can see some of the consequences of this incident. Here one of the H&M Stores in South Africa got totally trashed by protestors, who got upset by this campaign.
The quote on the top right is the one that started the whole wave of negative comments online.
The second and third quote show the official social media account of The Weekend and G-Eazy who posted their statements on their accounts declaring their end of the collaboration with H&M.

5. How H&M responded Short-term Actions Removed advert/piece from sales
Public apology on social media, website and press release
Temporarily closed South African stores
Used 3rd parties for positive PR
Short-term
Remove advert/piece from online and offline sales to be recycled
Public apology on social media, website and press release
H&M made the decision to temporarily close all South African stores to ensure the safety of the H&M employees and customers
Used 3rd parties for positive PR, for example the parents of the black boy model saying that they did not believe the ad was meant to be racist and not taken offense
Longterm:
Based on this incident, H&M created a new position: Global Leader for Diversity and Inclusiveness (to prevent similar mistakes in the future)
Additionally, H&M’s recently made the decision to send their marketing team to South Africa where they will work together with a South African marketing agency in order to raise awareness about cultural issues to avoid similar future mistakes.
This is a very recent case, this means the future will tell what further actions are to be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future. Monitoring of H&Ms actions is advisable to follow the development of this case.

6. Background – Additional Incidents
“H&M why don't you show some f***ng respect and fight with them in your stupid clothes.”
“(…) the Eva Braun collection”
“So is Harry Potter anti semitic?”
KATHI
2007: Zara Bag:
Zara launched a new bag with a pattern of flowers, bicycles and animals. The problem in this case is that the pattern also consisted of a number of green Swastikas, identical to the Nazi symbol. The bag caused a lot of attention and complaints against the company which was accused to be anti-semitic.
2014: H&M Jumpsuit
H&M launched a khaki green jumpsuit which looked very much like the Peshmerga uniform, worn by Kurdish females who are fighting ISIS in the Middle East. This event caused much attention on social media, especially from Kurds accusing H&M of being disrespectful. H&M was also claimed to capitalise on brave women fighting ISIS as a way to earn money.
2014: Mango Blouse
Mango launched a new blouse as part of a collection with many new patterns, that shows a black lightning-print. This pattern was automatically associated with the Nazi militia insignia called Siegrune which functioned as the Nazis’ distinctive mark on uniforms as well as on Nazi flags. The reactions to this product launch were intense, especially on Twitter. A few comments also drew parallels to the Jewish roots of the founders of Mango and asked why they did not feel personally offended by their own design due to the history of Jews and Nazis.
2014: Zara Shirt Zara launched a new shirt as part of their children collection. The designers of Zara were inspired by the Wild West theme and created a black-and-white striped long sleeved shirt with a yellow sheriff-star on the left side complementing the Wild West design idea. The shirt was associated with Nazi insignia and two negative associations were made. Firstly, the yellow star was associated with the one Jewish people were forced to wear during the Nazi-regime in Germany. Secondly, people claimed that the white and black stripes reminded them of prison camp uniforms and were linked to the Holocaust era and concentration camps.
“fresh-from-the-concentration-camp-look”

7. Phenomenon – Strategy or Naivety?
Fashion Controversies
Purposely offensive
Accidentally offensive but could have been avoided
KATHI
1. Desribe the Process: Chain of responsibilities in an online fashion retailer
As you can see there are many different departments and stages involved in the launching process of new collections/pieces.
As you know in the fast fashion industry, “speed to market” is key and outsourcing of activities is pretty common and these factors might have an impact on this phenomenon.
2. There are three commonly discussed types of fashion controversies:
The ones that are purposely offensive
those that are accidentally offensive but could have been avoided
and the ones that are just minor mistakes blown out of proportion.
Minor mistakes blown out of proportion

8. Management Questions Which long-term actions are needed
to prevent similar crises in the future?
How could these actions backfire?
Based on the introduction of the incident and the problem at hand for H&M, are there any further questions that need to be answered before we move on with the discussion?

9. The Real-Life Scenario
Short-term Actions
Long-term Actions
Removed advert/piece from sales
Public apology on social media, website and press release
Temporarily closed South African stores
Used 3rd parties for positive PR
New position: Global Leader for Diversity and Inclusiveness
Will send marketing team to South Africa to work together with local marketing agency
To be continued…
Short-term
Remove advert/piece from online and offline sales to be recycled
Public apology on social media, website and press release
H&M made the decision to temporarily close all South African stores to ensure the safety of the H&M employees and customers
Used 3rd parties for positive PR, for example the parents of the black boy model saying that they did not believe the ad was meant to be racist and not taken offense
Longterm:
Based on this incident, H&M created a new position: Global Leader for Diversity and Inclusiveness (to prevent similar mistakes in the future)
Additionally, H&M’s recently made the decision to send their marketing team to South Africa where they will work together with a South African marketing agency in order to raise awareness about cultural issues to avoid similar future mistakes.
This is a very recent case, this means the future will tell what further actions are to be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future. Monitoring of H&Ms actions is advisable to follow the development of this case.

10. The Industry Perspective
“I think it's absurd that this picture could go published without anyone raising issues but I can totally understand how it happened”
“In [a] company [in the fashion industry] and especially in e-commerce, a product is the work of so many people who don’t necessarily communicate with each other”.
In order to get insights into how this industry actually works in relation to the launching process of new pieces/collections and get a deeper understanding of this phenomenon, we interviewed a representative of one of the top 3 retailers in Europe.
You can see some of her statements up here on the slide.
“The creative department will produce assets and creatives without consulting marketing or merchandising [and] only share the finished work, when little can be done to change. Marketing and merchandising have the task of double checking everything before it goes live, and sometimes things slip through the cracks or we just have no time/power to push back. [...]"

11. The Root of the Problem
In order to get insights into how this industry actually works in relation to the launching process of new pieces/collections and get a deeper understanding of this phenomenon, we interviewed a representative of one of the top 3 retailers in Europe.
You can see some of her statements up here on the slide.

12. Restraining creative expression and healthy controversy?

13. Comments???
Questions???
To sum up: to you have any further questions or comments in relation to this H&M incident?!