OP-ED: Why Fast Fashion Scandals Rely On Even Faster News Cycles
By Ross Pollard
The world is changing but the change has presented a duality— while we have access to more information than ever, we also face the fastest news cycles the world has ever seen. A story that may have once lasted weeks can dissolve in less than 24 hours. It’s hard to remember what we saw or read yesterday let alone last week or last month.
20 years ago the digital age changed our news media from a handful of national outlets on screen and in print to a world with multiple rolling news channels, thousands of online media outlets and the ever-growing behemoth that is social media commentary and information sharing.
The situation is both a blessing and a curse. We’re more informed than ever, but we’re also bombarded with news. For fast fashion companies this has been a really good thing, negative press doesn’t need to be remedied, it needs to be outlasted. If we look at the use of forced labour in Xinjiang we can see rafts of news articles matching the flow of people’s google searches [1] when the story broke in March [2], and each time it returned in May, July and September. But rather than it creating change, the implicated brands (such as Uniqlo, Nike and Gap) issued boiler plate statements about their policies and plans without firm action— and sales were largely unaffected.
We could look at the frequent trips to the front pages of various outlets of the Arcadia group. They’ve side-stepped allegations of underpaid workers during the Ivy Park launch; the gender pay gap every year since being legally obliged to report it; and recently the fight with Unite over paying the required redundancies to employees losing their jobs. Each of these stories hit the headlines, boycotts were threatened, in some cases protests were held outside stores, but the revenue was largely untouched, the Arcadia financial troubles are largely connected to rents and other internal pressures, Youtube etc are still seeing hauls posted frequently and the brand continues to post positive buzz scores as recently as this month [3].
Off the record many of the people I know in PR will admit it’s all about outlasting the story, we’re all familiar with the tactic of drowning a hashtag or report, something that’s a specialty of the online fast fashion retailers. We’ve seen giveaways, new collections, collaborations and other distractions released at the same time as controversy hits, this isn’t a coincidence.
We could make a case study of BooHoo this year. Hit by allegations of modern slavery, in early July people were actively seeking information [4]. The retailer looked like it would struggle to overcome such serious allegations, they issued statements denying allegations that were questioned by many. The share price dived, social media exploded in anger, not good right? Jump forward a few months and the share price [5] has fully recovered, even the damning report they commissioned (which wasn’t as exhausting in its scope that many had wanted) released in September did nothing to blunt the forward trajectory, in early October the company announced its revenue had increased 45% in the 6 months up to 31st August, they’ve actually grown more than originally planned and expect to continue growing.
That spike in interest was literally that, one week of abnormal search traffic at the centre of the controversy. BooHoo have managed their response to avoid drawing attention to the situation, their own report wasn’t mentioned in the week of its circulation on their social media channels, which given the content is presumably wise.
But in a time when consumers talk of wanting a cleaner industry, will they need longer memories to make that happen? In every example I looked at, I could largely match search traffic spikes to the stories, but I could also see how quickly stories disappeared. It’s becoming clearer that fast fashion relies on the collective post-controversy forgetfulness of consumers tied to knowing another company may take their place on the front pages as a tactic, scrutiny is part of the process of change, but it must be matched by accountability, and that means accountability from all of us.
References:
[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=GB&gprop=news&q=uighur
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/china-transferred-detained-uighurs-to-factories-used-by-global-brands-report
[3] https://476942-1498811-raikfcquaxqncofqfm.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/THE_INDEX_REPORT_WAVE8_PT_2_compressed.pdf
[4] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=GB&gprop=news&q=Boohoo
[5] https://www.google.com/search?q=boohoo+share+price&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB763GB763&oq=boohoo+share+price&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i20i263j0i433j0l2j0i433j0l2.4064j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8