After comparisons to Gaza, Zara ad campaign succumbs to cancel culture
Evan Nierman
Video Embed
The threat of cancel culture has prevailed again: This time, the Spanish fashion retailer Zara was targeted after online trolls decided that an artsy ad campaign referred to scenes from the Israel-Hamas war. Zara yanked the images from social media, even though the accusations were untrue.
The Zara case is a textbook example of how the pressure from online mobs and the lightning-fast effect of social media can cause far-reaching damage, even if the accusers are misinformed.
SHADOW OF DOUBT: HOW 2020 ELECTION CHALLENGES IN ARIZONA AND GEORGIA ENDED
That companies should operate from a place of abject terror is ridiculous.
The ad campaign in question — photographed in September before the Israel-Hamas war broke out — featured a fashionably dressed woman with a shrouded mannequin slung over her shoulder. The woman was posing in an art studio amid easels and other plastic-wrapped artwork in an industrial-looking gallery space that appears to have somehow been damaged.
The Zara advertising controversy erupted on TikTok and spread like wildfire, threatening the clothing retailer’s bottom line, with the trending hashtag #BoycottZara.
In this case, Zara should have stood its ground, challenged its challengers, and clarified the narrative to make it clear that the advertising campaign had nothing to do with the war.
Instead, Zara officials released the following statement after pulling the ads: “Unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images, which have now been removed, and saw in them something far from what was intended when they were created. Zara regrets that misunderstanding and we reaffirm our deep respect towards everyone.”
That people would make the leap to claim that a fashion campaign was a nod somehow to the war in Gaza is mind-boggling and absurd. To try to destroy the brand equity of a fast fashion clothing line because it used images of destruction in an advertisement makes zero sense.
The knee-jerk reaction of online mobs to seek and destroy without the facts exemplifies why a cancel culture mindset is so dangerous.
The default setting is outrage. Mobilizing people to attack over something that is purely the interpretation of online trolls is ridiculous. And the fact that it would cost Zara millions or even potentially billions in revenue is particularly galling because this claim is based purely on perception and has nothing to do with facts or reality.
Business owners should take note of how this case played out.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
We should use this case as a warning signal to other brands that this is the environment that we’re in right now. Anything and everything they do or say can and will be used against them in the court of public opinion. And moreover, this entire Zara boycott was predicated on a lie.
Sadly, this is just the latest example of people leaping to a false conclusion and then making that perception into something that has very far-reaching impacts on reality. When society starts mobilizing others to isolate and punish based on fiction instead of fact, we have really crossed the Rubicon.
Evan Nierman is founder and CEO of the crisis communications firm Red Banyan and author of Amazon bestsellers Crisis Averted and The Cancel Culture Curse: From Rage to Redemption in a World Gone Mad.