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Communication Crisis in Fashion: From the Rana Plaza Tragedy to the Bravo Tekstil Factory Crisis

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Fashion Communication in the Digital Age (FACTUM 2019)

Abstract

This paper addresses the state of the question regarding crisis communication and corporate social responsibility, going on to describe the fashion industry system. For this, two crisis cases in the fashion industry are analyzed: Rana Plaza and Bravo Tekstil Factory. The Rana Plaza case is the worst accident in the history of fashion manufacturing. The management of the crisis on the part of the individual brands was extremely diverse and led them towards different communications scenarios. However, another crisis emerged at that moment: the industry itself and its manufacturing methods were effectively called into question. In fact, this issue has continued to be controversial and has led to an interesting public debate that had been demonstrated in the crisis in 2017. The crisis cases analyzed, bringing together the facts and the communicative reactions of the brands, as well as the media. This paper seeks to meet three objectives: stress the importance of communication with regard to the management of the crisis; highlight the link between crisis communication and corporate social responsibility; focus attention on the fashion industry, where intangible values acquire considerable importance and, therefore, are especially affected by crises. Our discussion and conclusions highlight the need to understand this kind of crisis by considering other perspectives and questioning some of the traditional ways of approaching the matter of crisis communication.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to the magazine, Modaes (28/04/14): Out of the 600,000 factories that make up the textile industry in Bangladesh, only 2,000 work for international groups, including the leading players from the industry in Spain: Inditex, Mango and the Cortefiel Group. In the same way as for H&M, Bangladesh is an important supply source for Inditex: it is the largest productive hub according to number of indirect employees, as indicated in the Year 2012 Annual Report. In 2012, Inditex purchased products from a total of 108 suppliers from Bangladesh, compared to ninety the previous year. These suppliers were linked, in turn, to 177 manufacturers, compared to 154 in 2011. A total of 228,520 persons made up the workforces at Inditex factories in Bangladesh at the end of 2012, some 2000 more than in 2011. This figure is well above the 170,709 employees who worked indirectly for Inditex in China, making this country the second most important supplier for the Galician company. In the case of Mango, out of the total purchases made by the group (including raw materials) in 2012, some 41.66% corresponded to China. Bangladesh is currently the sixth most important productive hub for the Catalan group, behind China, Turkey, South Korea, Spain and Morocco. In 2012, Bangladesh accounted for some 5.81% of the company’s overall purchases.

  2. 2.

    A few months earlier, in November 2012, another accident took place in the textile industry in Bangladesh: a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory in the district of Ashulia. More than one hundred workers lost their lives.

  3. 3.

    The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh was signed by the following brands: H&M, Inditex, C&A, PVH, Tchibo, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Primark, El Corte Inglés, jbc, Mango, Carrefour, KiK, Helly Hansen, G-Star, Aldi, New Look, Mothercare, Loblaws, Sainsbury’s, Benetton, N Brown Group, Stockmann, WE Europe, Esprit, Rewe, Next, Lidl, Hess Natur, Switcher and A&F. Walmart, however, refused to sign the accord and, instead, in partnership with Gap, founded the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, which is a voluntary organization.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ISEM Fashion Business School, University of Navarra, Madrid, Spain

    Teresa Sádaba, Patricia SanMiguel & Paula Gargoles

Authors
  1. Teresa Sádaba
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  2. Patricia SanMiguel
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  3. Paula Gargoles
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patricia SanMiguel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication, USI – Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

    Nadzeya Kalbaska

  2. ISEM Fashion Business School, University of Navarra, Madrid, Spain

    Teresa Sádaba

  3. IREST/EIREST, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris, France

    Francesca Cominelli

  4. Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication, USI – Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

    Lorenzo Cantoni

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Sádaba, T., SanMiguel, P., Gargoles, P. (2019). Communication Crisis in Fashion: From the Rana Plaza Tragedy to the Bravo Tekstil Factory Crisis. In: Kalbaska, N., Sádaba, T., Cominelli, F., Cantoni, L. (eds) Fashion Communication in the Digital Age. FACTUM 2019. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15436-3_24

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