Dear Ferragni, my (unsolicited) advice to save your brand
The communication strategy adopted by the influencer has been criticised by many, who consider it inadequate and ineffective. The author of the article, a publicist and president of the National Association of Social Media Managers, suggests that Chiara Ferragni should change course and adopt a more aggressive strategy that puts her in a defensive position
by Riccardo Pirrone *
3' min read
3' min read
Everything is coming down. Fedez is nervous, Chiara first cries, then is serene, then admits and apologises, then impugns the sentence, then leaves with the balances. These are too mixed messages from those who no longer know what to do. It all seems to be done haphazardly. This task force hired for crisis management would be better called a task perhaps. Of course, if then, following a mess like the Pandoro-gate they advise you to focus on victimhood and publish a tearful admission video that was meant to stem the tide and instead has definitively sunk it, then the problem becomes irretrievable. Deny, deny and deny again: that is the rule.
The choice of 'pretending nothing happened' adopted in December 2022, when Selvaggia Lucarelli had already published articles explaining the shadows of the Pandoro Ferragni/Balocco operation, had worked: for the whole of the following year, no repercussions on the character of Chiara Ferragni and no reputational crisis for her companies.
For this reason, that video should not have been made at all. By publicly admitting that she was wrong, even those who hitherto took her at her word stopped doing so. Some will accept the apology, but most will not. People forgive everything and everyone, except those who joke with sick children. You see what happens with all the news about tax evaders, which is perhaps more serious: but if you cheat the state it is OK, you are forgiven, because the state is bad, whereas if you play with charities you fall into a black hole.
If Chiara Ferragni was previously seen as the untouchable princess of beauty and charity, we have now realised that this is not really the case. And two photos of her daughter Vittoria will not be enough to make all the brands go away with a bang, worried in turn about a reputational crisis. As I have already explained in the past, Chiara Ferragni is not a woman, she is a brand. And like any brand, she moves to increase her turnover, to make her image better known, to preserve her interests. What might initially have seemed like a common 'shrewd marketing move', a frequent practice made by many companies, with the communication decisions taken subsequently seemed a way to come out clean and even virtuous through a large donation. A vain effort, so much so that once the news came out that the donation had been made to the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin, promised in the apology video, the most common sarcastic comment among online users was: 'Very spontaneous, this donation'.
But how do you get back up once you hit rock bottom? You need a complete change of course, you have to defend yourself by attacking. Chiara, I have the solution. Make a T-shirt that says 'TRUFFLE', which would be the words written by a vandal on your shop window. Respond to the attack by attacking yourself. Fashion weeks are just around the corner: imagine Versace parading you around wearing a shirt with the words 'BANDITA'. It would be a coup de theatre. People would say: 'After all, what did you do to deserve this pillory', comparing you to other people who commit much more serious crimes. No one would be able to accuse you anymore, not least because you would be the first to do so, to recognise the problem and play on it. You'd come out triumphant: you'd depower the offences and reaffirm your brand. Sure, it takes courage, but fashion is courage and, as it created you, it will save you. But, Chiara, be careful about using this idea without warning me.
