Secure your place at the Digiday Media Buying Summit in Nashville, March 2-4
Amid the fear left in the wake of this fall’s terrorism attacks in Paris and California, some retailers have been caught racially profiling shoppers. Zara apologized after a video uploaded a day after the Paris attacks showed one of its stores there barring a Muslim woman wearing a hijab from entering. In Los Angeles, following the San Bernardino shooting, a Muslim woman complained that she was profiled after inquiring at a local Dick’s Sporting Goods about hunting ammo.
Some retailers that have deliberately made inclusiveness part of their brands, though. H&M featured a hijab-wearing model in a major ad campaign back in September, before the terror attacks. Net-a-Porter ran a capsule collection in June honoring Ramadan. Even Abercrombie & Fitch is trying to mend its ways — the store refused to hire a hijab-wearing woman in 2008, and the Supreme Court ruled in June against the company. Since then, Abercrombie has created a diversity and inclusion team.
More in Marketing
Future of Marketing Briefing: AI’s branding problem is why marketers keep it off the label
The reputational downside is clearer than the branding upside, which makes discretion the safer strategy.
While holdcos build ‘death stars of content,’ indie creative agencies take alternative routes
Indie agencies and the holding company sector were once bound together. The Super Bowl and WPP’s latest remodeling plans show they’re heading in different directions.
How Boll & Branch leverages AI for operational and creative tasks
Boll & Branch first and foremost uses AI to manage workflows across teams.