This is a response to Timmy Cheung’s “New Money” blog post.

Being a “Hong Konger” myself, I was quite shocked and unhappy when my mom told me about the discriminatory acts from Dolce & Gabbana towards Hong Kong residents. Being a store located in Hong Kong, you would expect sales people to have spectacular service towards Hong Kong residents. Instead, D&G’s target market turned out to be people from Mainland China due to the influx of tourists that keeps the business thriving. When the controversy regarding the photo ban first came out, I thought, “Well, there is nothing we can do about it. Mainland-Chinese tourists are wealthier and it makes sense to provide better service to them.” Contrary to my belief, over 1000 Hong Kong residents actually protested outside the store and forced it to close early.

This is truly a classic example of various publics that affect the microenvironment of marketing. The rally was organized on Facebook, Hong Kong newspapers such as Apple Daily ran consecutive articles regarding the protest, and even posted a video of security guards asking people to stop taking photos. In addition, various blogs and comments regarding the discrimination had been detrimental to D&G’s brand. (http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2012/01/09/dolce-gabbana-photo-ban-sparks-protest/tab/comments/)

For example, we see comments such as, “Those who shop at D&G are fools” and “Go buy the knock offs, they are just as tacky as the real thing.” It shows how powerful media and citizen-action publics can be, and how harmful it can be to a company. I understand that almost all stores do not let people take pictures of merchandise or the store in general. However, only banning Hong Kong residents from doing so, and not people from mainland China or foreigners is Dolce and Gabbana’s insensitivity to equality and quality customer service. D&G failed the most basic marketing rule – to bring value to customers, create customer experiences, and build customer relationships. Also, it took Dolce and Gabbana over a week before making an official apology to Hong Kong. These are truly such disappointing actions from a world class brand.