Nicky's Rag Tales

Last week H&M, that much loved high street Fashion Chain group found itself in the middle of a media and Internet storm through it’s own making. This time it wasn’t the launch of a new collaboration. The New York Times ( read the article here)reported that huge quantities of unsold H&M clothes had been dumped outside it’s 34 th street location in Manhattan, in black sacks. The problem was that the clothes had been slashed purposefully as to render them unwearable. Gloves had, had the fingers cut off, jackets had sleeves ripped and dresses slashed. The fact that the clothes were not being given to a charity for re distribution or even recycled was pretty disgusting especially in this era of economic hardship and the need to take care of the planet.

Twitter got a hold of the story and within minutes we were all commenting about how terrible this was. People were incensed that H&M had thrown away usable clothes and how awful they were. Threats of boycotts and protests were coming in thick and fast. The item rose to number 2 on the Twitter trending list within a few hours. I was one of those Tweeters and what was startling was H&M’s slowness at dealing with the issue. They were still tweeting their latest fashion offers while all this was going on and it took them one whole day to come out and apologise for something they said was NOT company policy. The Twitterati are a forgiving lot and have accepted the apology, even praise for H&M was in the air.

What all major retailers need to understand is this. The power of people through the use of Social Media is huge and it’s bigger than any of the old Print Media or your PR Gurus. You need to be present and to be immediate. If you make a mistake say so quickly and make amends.

H&M