This week you will be preparing an oral presentation. In this week\'s lecture we

Question

This week you will be preparing an oral presentation. In this week's lecture we discussed various ways to create a catchy opening for a presentation. Choose a story from www.bizcominthenews.com (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and create an interesting opening that they would deliver for that story and that could be used in a presentation. What do you consider to be the highlights of the story? Why did you choose that particular story?

H&M's Product and Photo Criticized

Yet another retailer is criticized for a product and image considered, as Forbes puts it, "racially insensitive." This time, H&M is answering for an image of a black child in a hooded sweatshirt with the message, "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle."

As predicted, the company pulled the product and issued an apology:

"We understand that many people are upset about the image. We, who work at H&M, can only agree. We are deeply sorry that the picture was taken, and we also regret the actual print. Therefore, we have not only removed the image from our channels, but also the garment from our product offering globally. It is obvious that our routines have not been followed properly. This is without any doubt. We will thoroughly investigate why this happened to prevent this type of mistake from happening again."

Still, some people are boycotting H&M, and Grammy winner Abel Tesfaye (aka "The Weeknd") says he is cutting ties with the brand.

Discussion:

Same question as usual: How did this happen? How could the product and image have passed a review process?

Abercrombie has been accused of intentionally creating controversial clothing. Do you think this is the case with H&M? Why or why not?

To what extent is H&M taking responsibility for the incident? What else, if anything, should the company do?

Posted at 03:17 PM in Ch 1: Understanding BComm (Ethics, Legal, and Technology), Accountability, Ch 2: Intercultural and Team Communication | Permalink

Explanation / Answer

How did this happen? How could the product and image have passed a review process?

Ans :- The way company designers might have thought about this would be different to what reaction they faced. Now the slogan ' coolest monkey in the town' was not meant to degrade a particular race but the issue was that they could not think the diverse opinions that public have and ignored cultural sensitivities.

The product and image passed a review process probably because they did not had a focus group discussion with the public whether this is sensitive or not. Interestingly the child's family is supporting H & M so it shows that human emotions and reactions of public at large can not be predicted with certainty.

Abercrombie has been accused of intentionally creating controversial clothing. Do you think this is the case with H&M? Why or why not?

Ans ) Abercrombie has a formal strategy of using controverials to gain popularity and have a brand following while H &M focus on convenience. So I do not think that this was the case with H&M. I just think that H&M just tried to launch a new style statement and get caught up in the heat of moment

To what extent is H&M taking responsibility for the incident? What else, if anything, should the company do?

H&M is taking full responsibility as they have issued an apology as well as taken out all advertisements and inventory. But this is the only part as just by issuing a statement they can not improve their perception. So they need to show that their company care about all races, ethnicities and they can show that they have various employees of colour , they need to run a campaign to improve their perception as well

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.