Social media PR and Claire’s: crisis, what crisis?
25. Jan, 2011 
2 Comments
It’s now one week since independent designer Laura Figiel revealed on her blog that popular teen store Claire’s Accessories has copied her original design. Here’s the evidence:
Image adapted from Draw, Glue, Gliter, Make
It’s interesting is that, despite a significant Twitter uproar, widespread blog coverage and some reasonably heavyweight social media supporters like Ben Goldacre, Claire’s appears to be taking a Keep Calm And Carry On approach. They have made no comment at all. Instead they have continued to merrily post about Keira Knightley’s chic jeans and lip gloss.
If you landed on their Facebook page you wouldn’t know there was an issue. That’s because Claire’s are deleting mentions of the story very quickly, just as the derided Nestle did during their own social media crisis of March 2010. But search @clairestores on Twitter and the volume of disgusted tweets is loud.
Is ‘just ignore’ a clever strategy for Claire’s in this situation? Because, while this story hasn’t gone away, we have certainly seen its urgency fade with each day that Claire’s have said nothing.
Have Claire’s observed the behaviors and outcomes around the similar Paperchase scandal, or the social media fails of Habitat or H&M, and decided to try a different response: no response at all.
We shall see perhaps over the next few days as dogged types like Dan Martin of BusinessZone keep asking questions.
Perhaps it will take an article from a traditional title like The Guardian or The Telegraph to provoke a response. Both those papers, along with others like the Metro and the Independent, jumped on the Paperchase story and now rank on page one of Google for ‘Paperchase Twitter‘ as a result. Curiously the Claire’s story has not been picked up.
Most advice about handling a social media PR crisis includes recommendations to acknowledge mistakes and to engage in debate positively.
But a question for any PR or online reputation people reading: is it sometimes worth simply ignoring the situation and seeing how things turn out?
Footnote: I am disturbed that Claire’s have copied the original work of this designer and I hope she is compensated or at least receives the explanation she deserves. The purpose of this post is to reflect on how brands deal with public comment in social media. Luke
It’s ignorant and rude of Claire’s to ignore but time will tell if it was stupid. The reason I say, CA with its penchant for fast fashion and cheap rip offs has never tried to be anything else. Long term this could hurt them if they try to bridge from their base business but do Guardian shoppers and the Twitterati shop there? I don’t and I won’t, but whether CA cares enough about my protest remains to be seen…