Nowadays, fashion scandal is always associate with the digital visual platform such as tiktok and instagram. According to study case and figures, before the digital disruption of fashion, it was estimated that people viewed more than 3,000 advertisement a day, but nowadays, average person is estimated to view 6,000 to 10,000 advertisement a day. This basically means brand’s value and aesthetic are mostly spread to their audience by visual communication, such as photography and video. However, it has always been hard to stand out from this huge amount of visual image. Therefore, Fashion brands have their strategies and tactics to obtain public attention. For example, brand can come up with intentional scandals to impact their audience emotionally, which allowed them to have deeper memory of the product and also increase the brand visibility.

In the past decades, the fashion scandal has been proven to be effective for marketing purpose. In the 1980s and 1990s, shock was used as a deliberate choice and a tool for being seen and remembered in marketing communication. Since 1980s, fashion brands such as Vivienne Westwood, Diesel, Calvin Klein and Gucci have used fashion scandals as a shock to the audience and become more noticeable in the public. 

During the 2000s, brands directed a lot of daring advertisement which lead them onto the cusp of the controversy. For example, in 1991, since Mauricio Macciori became the advertising director of Diesel, he created the logo that we are familiar with today, but also release the “for successful living” campaign which ran in 89 countries over three years. Diesel has always been seen as a rebellious brand and capable of speaking to gen-z in an authentic and direct way that few other brands can do. This campaign successfully created debate and comment from the public, which made Diesel became the most renowned denim brand and also one of the hottest brand at that time. The adverts were hilarious, controversial but also political, so obviously it had people talking which leading to a dramatical rise in their sales and stockiest.  

After the previous success, Diesel launched another controversial commercials in 1997, which won GP Cannes Lion award for the brand in 1997. The commercials is in video form, which depict a group of young male solider are doing their training, and then two male soldier were demonstrating artificial respiration. This adverts later on became the brand’s most successful TV ad campaigns, considered as a mockery of homophobia and toxic masculinity, while generally the acceptance for LGBTQ community was not there yet compare to the way it is today in western society. It is difficult to really talk about how much Diesel benefit from those controversial campaign, but surely they has play a important role in the revival of the brand, since their bankruptcy in 2019. Those controversial ads have all became iconic and shaped Diesel’s brand value, left a rich legacy for their nowadays directive director Glenn Martens, who helped the brand to come back into the public view as a rebellious and daring brand.

Professor of Journalism Michael(1989) has noted that advertising must find its resonance with their consumers and “match the needs and interests of particularly socially and culturally constituted groups.” For brands like Diesel, shock was used as a deliberate marketing strategy which communicate their brands value and demonstrate their product in a broader social discourse.

 However, there is another strategy that fashion brands have adopted is the “visual shock advertising” or “shockvertising”. Instead of associating brand’s product with broader social discourse, brand would launch campaign consisted of image of violence, sexual reference and profanity, which are relatively more stimulating in the visual experience for the public. Furthermore, this type of visual-stimulating image generally can be understood from various interpretation, this means the brand can stay in a better position for their corrective action after the controversy. As there are many interpretation possibilities, the brand could  be reluctant of the criticizing from public and gain more visibility in their denial or corrective action.

In 2000s, after the arrival of the noble fashion designer John Galliano, the classical couture house Dior shifted their target group to the consumer from younger generation, in order to jump out of the old-fashioned and outdated brand image.  In their Spring/Summer collection from 2000, the Dior saddle bag was introduced by a advertising campaign shot by Nick Knight featuring the supermodel Gisele Bündchen with Rhea Durham in a series of semi-close-up image which both of them are in sweats and holding each other. However, this was considered as improper interpretation of femininity and quickly became scandalous, some believe that the models seems too passionate toward each other and create improper interpretation and objectification of female body, eventually the campaign was banned from multiple fashion magazines. In 2001, Dior’s accessories sales increased by at lease 60% due to the huge success of the bag, as it was already wore by celebrity such as Paris Hilton. At this point, Dior has successfully polish themself from the previous image of the brand and efficiently gain more visibility among the young fashionable women.

Benetton was pioneering in pushing the limits of advertising and known of creating controversy and debate through their  campaign series. over the years they used daring photograph addressing social issues like environmental issues, terrorism, racism and politics. Benetton was also the first company to eliminate their product completely from its ad campaigns, which means their visibility was mostly increased by their narratives on political or social issues. On 16 November 2011, Benetton launched the UNHATE communication project which include a series of coordinated initiative and events, spread by newspaper, periodicals and website around the world. It is a series of close-up photography of world leaders kissing each other, which include Barack Obama and Chinese leader Hu Jintao; the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As kissing is the most common expression of love, the executive deputy chairman of Benetton Group, Alessandro Benetton stated that they had decided to give widespread visibility to an ideal notion of tolerance and invite all the citizens of every country to reflect on how hatred arises particularly from fear of ‘the other’ and of what is unfamiliar to the society.

Benetton’s strategy has been called out for “controversy advertising” which refers to encouraging their customer in active participation, debate and communicate with the brand directly. This has lead to a impact to the adverts of shifting their focus on their product to broader social issues ranging from various form of discrimination, homophobia,  environmental issues and war to state that the brand are not afraid to take a stand. On sensitive topics. As Oliviero Toscani stated, an Italian photographer worked for Benetton from 1982 till 2000, it is important to “not give the people what they. want but give them what they need”. Many of Toscani’s campaigns have been considered as exploitative on vulnerable group’s pain, but Toscani saw it as an opportunity to shake the current views and belief of social consciousness, to challenge the conservative morals. In the respond to the boycotting and and public anger of the use of shocking imagery, Toscani said“people shouldn’t be shocked by an image, they should be shocked by reality. You should. Be aware that not everyone thinks about shock in the same way that you do.” For him, it is necessary to show global issues through his visual language, “I use photography to express my vision of what’s going on. I am a witness of my time.” Toscani believed that the image would reinforce the “united” message of Benetton, despite the massive complaint and criticizing from the public,  the UNHATE communication project won the Swiss prize from the Société Général d’Affichage, exhibited in Netherlands and became the cover of Benetton’s first magazine, which also bings up the sales and visibility for the brand, proven that they are much more than a retailer and a producer of multicolored sweaters.

There is no agreement on the effects of the shock, some believe that it is effective to catch public attention, but others are not convinced and question it has not practical effect in marketing. Eventually, fashion scandals has lost its value as a marketing strategy, due to the rise of social media platform, customer can communicate with the brand in a direct way, which means the controversy can get out of control and work against the brand. It is not a designed strategy to attract publicity, it is a mistake by the brand due to lack of knowledge and ignorance, which can lead to corrective action such as apologizes, product withdrawn. In conclusion, before the disruption of digital platform, brands are more free to express or polish their brand image through sensitive topics.

Reference:

Filippetti, Jenny. “Benetton Unhate Campaign Features Kissing World Leaders.” Designboom, 16 Nov. 2011, www.designboom.com/design/benetton-unhate-campaign-features-kissing-world-leaders/. 

CNN. “Benetton’s Controversial Ad Campaign.” YouTube, YouTube, 17 Nov. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOmqceTk8MQ. 

Shahnavaz, Nazanin. “Fashion Ads: The Most Controversial Fashion Campaigns.” Hero, 26 Apr. 2017, hero-magazine.com/article/94575/the-most-controversial-ads-in-fashion. 

Duffy, Eilidh Nuala. “Benetton’s Most Controversial Campaigns.” British Vogue, British Vogue, 8 Dec. 2017, www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/benettons-best-advertising-campaigns. 

Allwood, Emma Hope. “Making the World’s Most Controversial Ad Campaigns.” Dazed, 18 Nov. 2016, www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/33763/1/making-the-worlds-most-controversial-ad-campaigns-diesel-jocke-jonason. 

Gurova, Olga. “(PDF) The Fashion Scandal: Social Media, Identity and the Globalization of Fashion in the Twenty-First Century.” Research Gate, Jan. 2024, www.researchgate.net/publication/352893724_The_fashion_scandal_Social_media_identity_and_the_globalization_of_fashion_in_the_twenty-first_century. 

Understitch. “The Rise and Rise of Diesel.” YouTube, YouTube, 25 Sept. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUSzVjdqygM&t=274s.