Social Listening: Chanel

January 23, 2022

Social Listening: Chanel

Even though my last post was for Chanel's outrageous advent calendar, this assignment fit it too well to pass up. The biggest reason for selecting this brand is because people are still talking about Chanel and how poorly this entire situation unfolded. People are trying to cancel Chanel, even the hashtag #CancelChanel started trending on TikTok but it didn't stop there. Upset customers flooded Chanel's Instagram asking about the product. Every single post they uploaded until they finally reached out to news networks like NBC and Insider, had hundreds of comments wanting an explanation. Even after they responded to the outrage, people still went to their Instagram for weeks to talk about it. What interested me the most about this product is how poorly they reacted to it and how angry people still are.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about let me give you a quick explanation. Chanel launched an advent calendar for Christmas that left customers speechless, but not in a good way. The contents were a shock; with stickers, dust bags and miscellaneous cheap items, no one was satisfied with their $825 purchase. To worsen the situation, Chanel took a long time to make any comment and when they did, they put the blame on the customers.

Chanel's Value proposition is their high-quality products. Their products are hundreds of dollars and they've been around for a long time. Leading consumers to believe that their advent Calander would be at the same standards as the rest of their products. Chanel is a designer brand with designer prices, people thought they could trust the calendar to have at least decent items in it but they found throw away items instead.

Chanel's Instagram when they released another calendar type product. Dec 22

Chanel's Instagram Dec 19

The screenshots above and below were at the end of December, after Chanel had already reached out but people simply weren't satisfied with what they heard. Evidently Chanel did release a second advent type product, but people weren't having it. Some people called it a scam and others simply stated they've seen the advent calendar and won't be purchasing the second. Many people were trolling Chanel by asking if it had stickers or an empty dust bag too. My favorite comments are by 'olgapohrebryak' who was fed up with how Chanel was handling the situation. She claims that Chanel is buying bots to comment on their Instagram makes a joke about Chanel's response as well. She states, "Buying bots, deleting comments and screaming about 'our followers are free to express their feelings and opinions is sooo Chanel-ish nowadays." Her claim may seem untruthful but digging into the comments and the commenters profiles, I do believe she's correct about the bots. The comment by 'jonassmith16' said, "...you ripped off customers by selling them actual give aways for $825 and still refuse to apologize or reimburse them👎" In Chanels statement (not apology), they placed blame on customers stating they could see the contents online and followed it with a 'next time we'll do better'.

Chanel's Instagram Dec 23

Chanel's effort to make this calendar memorable or remarkable was successful. They had a very unique design of the packaging that really sold the product, since it's shaped as a giant Chanel No 5 perfume. Unfortunately, I don't think people will remember the packaging as much as they'll remember their disappointment when opening their expensive calendar. They have a huge following on Instagram where they show new products. Since their Instagram reaches so many loyal customers, it would have been nice to see them post anything about the situation, but they never did. They continued to post new products as if nothing happened, which is probably one of the biggest reasons they are still receiving hate comments to this day. At this stage, they are trying to keep the hate from coming up once again and they're doing a good job of it. Even though I don't agree with buying bots or possibly even deleting hate comments, they don't want to properly apologize or reimburse their customers so the way they're handling it is the best way to keep the heat down.

Their response to customers was extremely poor. Spokesperson Gregiore Audidier, said to People Magazine, "Directly inspired by the mythical silhouette of the N°5 bottle, the collector’s item and the contents included are detailed on our website, chanel.com." Instead of apologizing for placing free items in the calendar, they dodged blame with that statement. Even though their website showed all of the items, many people that bought them were in store, where they weren't shown the contents. He continued and stated that next time they would do better but that simply wasn't good enough for most customers. Chanel's response should have happened quickly and should have truly apologized for the incident. Their apology was almost a slap in the face to customers and blamed them for not shopping online instead of their poor products they put in it. If I were a brand manager or spokesperson of Chanel, I would have immediately posted on Instagram an apology and reached out to at least the owners of the viral videos. I would have also made my apology sincere and in no way place blame on my loyal customers.

In this assignment I learned how hard it is to fix something once it's been broken. Not many people will trust the Chanel brand for anymore surprise calendars if they even still support the brand at all. Many people are looking at other brands to replace Chanel's product with and that's something that could have been avoided with proper cautions in their statement.