After the improper pattern printing of its children's clothing brand products continued to ferment, the stock price of Jiangnan Cloth, which was deeply involved in the whirlpool of public opinion, was also affected.
On September 27, Jiangnan Cloth closed down 9.35%, with the latest market value of HK$7.045 billion. In the last two trading days, its market value has evaporated by a total of HK$1.91 billion (about 1.58 billion yuan).
On September 26, according to the official microblog of the Information Office of the People's Government of Hangzhou Xihu District, the relevant departments of the Xihu District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, have interviewed Jiangnan Clothing and instructed the enterprise to immediately remove the children's clothing involved and the same type of clothing, and to return the children's clothing sold without reason. At the same time, an investigation team composed of the West Lake District Market Supervision Bureau and other departments and subordinate streets was set up to investigate the incident and deal with it in accordance with laws and regulations according to the results of the investigation.
A few days ago, some netizens found English characters such as "Welcome to the hell" (welcome to hell) and "Let me touch you" (let me touch you) on the shirt of Jiangnan Cloth's children's clothing "jnby by JNBY" (also known as "Little Jiangnan"), and it was equipped with text and pattern content that are not suitable for children, such as Satan, skull, and hell, causing controversy. Since then, although Jiangnan Cloth has made a statement on this, netizens still do not buy it. In the past two days, the relevant topics on social media have been extremely hot, and it is believed that Jiangnan Cloth should make further details on this matter.
However, the company's second explanation did not wait, and the official had already struck. "For Jiangnan Cloth, the impact of this incident of improper children's clothing patterns is twofold, involving the capital level and the consumer level." Ma Gang, an independent commentator in the clothing industry, told the International Finance News reporter, "I hope that more designers, as well as more brand owners, will be more serious about product design, more respect for the market, and more respect for consumers." ”
Children's prints are outraged
This is the biggest "public opinion crisis" encountered since jiangnan cloth was listed.
"It is not tolerated that such a well-known clothing brand has such a patterned text printed on the clothes, and it is a child's clothing." "It's so weird ads and patterns that should be thoroughly investigated!" "Shocking, terrifying!" On Weibo, under the topic of Jiangnan cloth, user messages seemed a bit fierce and quite resistant.
According to public information, the jnby by JNBY brand was released in 2011, the brand concept is "Free imagination (free imagination)", the target customers are between 0 and 10 years old love life, independent self, with a certain quality of life of the middle-class family children. On the e-commerce platform, the sales unit price of the brand's children's clothing is basically more than 300 yuan, and the price of a children's dress is nearly 1500 yuan. Even if the price is higher among children's clothing, many consumers are still willing to pay for their design. Therefore, when the incident came out, most consumers bluntly said that it was "very hurt and difficult to accept".
But it doesn't stop there. Since then, some netizens have posted children's clothing and youth clothing in Jiangnan clothing for publicity photos on ins, in addition to being accused of shooting style is weird, some photos are also considered by consumers to have "indecent" elements.
Or unable to withstand the pressure of public opinion, finally on September 23, Jiangnan Buyi released a letter to consumers through the official Weibo of "jnby by JNBY". According to the article, jnby by JNBY children's wear brand received complaints from consumers about inappropriate patterns in individual products, and attached great importance to it, and has completely removed the product series involved from the shelves for the first time, revoked the relevant publicity materials, and set up a special team to start self-inspection.
"We hope to establish a stricter internal review mechanism by comprehensively reviewing the clothing design and approval process..." Jiang Nan Buyi said, while claiming that it has opened up consumer return channels, and consumers who have purchased relevant removed goods can go to the original purchase channel to return.
It is worth mentioning that this apology statement also spent a lot of time "introducing" jnby by JNBY's brand concept, saying that it is to create more childlike fun with the help of artistic design techniques.
In this regard, a large number of consumers said that they did not accept it, believing that Jiangnan cloth was somewhat "avoiding the heavy and light".
"Individual products? Inappropriate pattern? I think the hearts of enterprises are really too big, and whether the reaction of so many consumers on the Internet is not noticed, or do they feel that there is no problem at all. An anonymous consumer told reporters that in the past, he would also buy children's clothes for Jiangnan clothing, thinking that the design was good, but did not pay attention to the details of the pattern, but this time after seeing a large number of pictures on social media and the expressions of netizens, the heart was full of doubts and anger, "Jiangnan cloth needs more explanation."
In response to the above incident, on September 27, the reporter of the International Finance News further interviewed Jiangnan Cloth, but as of press time, no relevant reply was given.
Designers are responsible?
According to the introduction of Jiangnan Cloth's official website, it was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Hangzhou, and its current brand portfolio includes mature brands represented by JNBY, growing brands based on CROQUIS (sketching), jnby by JNBY and less, as well as many emerging brands including POMME DE TERRE (Pengma) and JNBYHOME.
After reading the relevant financial report of Jiangnan Cloth, the reporter noticed that the "protagonist" of the incident, jnby by JNBY, can be called the highlight of its performance.
According to the financial report, for the fiscal year ended June 30 this year, jnby by JNBY's revenue was 657 million yuan, second only to the main brand JNBY and menswear brand sketch. In this latest fiscal year, jnby by JNBY's 47.8% growth rate is much higher than the main brand JNBY's 30.5%. In terms of stores, as of June 30 this year, the number of jnby by JNBY stores has reached 470.
Why does a sub-brand that is so important to Jiangnan Cloth appear in the aforementioned "design rollover" situation? This is also one of the problems that many consumers have doubts in their hearts.
"I don't accept such a perfunctory apology. Please indicate which link went wrong. Resulting in this pattern from design to production to sale without personal discovery problems. The guy who wore jnby's clothes for ten years was really angry! On Weibo, there are users who leave such a message.
"I was talking to my colleagues about this matter just now, and the problem this time is mainly in the pattern, which has a lot to do with the concept of the main design." On the evening of September 26, a senior fashion designer Mu Feng (pseudonym), who had worked in a number of large listed clothing companies, told the International Finance News reporter. It said that the children's clothing of Jiangnan clothing is a maverick, only emphasizing its brand tonality, this level is logically no problem, but when integrating some foreign cultures that are consistent with the brand tonality into the product, enterprises still have to carry out more comprehensive consideration.
"Every season, clothing companies will first have a 'storyboard' with a design concept on it, and then the designer will create under this concept. In the choice of pattern, the company will have the pattern director or the main designer to finally review and finalize. Mu Feng further said.
At present, many people engaged in design industry pointed out that Jiangnan Cloth should be an internal audit that has not been done. In addition, all aspects of the design of the product are often related to the original intention of the brand' establishment, and the positioning of Jiangnan Cloth for children's clothing is artistic adult sense children's clothing, but this degree is not so easy to control.
Earlier, BoF Fashion Business Review mentioned in a report that Li Lin, one of the founders of Jiangnan Cloth, bought and sold from Guangdong in the early days, and later designed by herself, after which she served as the creative director of the brand. It is said that Li Lin does not like the childish cartoon style, "there is an imagination of the children's clothes." ”
In a 2018 interview, Li Lin also revealed the size of the design team at that time: among its four brands, JNBY, Sketch and Less each had about 10 designers, but "jnby by JNBY children's clothing is less, only four." ”
At present, the scale of Jiangnan cloth children's clothing designers, what the internal audit process is, and which link is the problem is still unknown, and the corresponding situation has yet to be reported by the official investigation results.
"From planning, design, ordering, fabrics, production, retail, it's a very long link, there are enough people involved, why not find out?" The essence is not enough attention to the product. In this regard, Ma Gang expressed such a view, he pointed out that the product itself uses Western-style elements, does not rule out the existence of blindly catering to some Chongyang consumers, it can be said that brand owners are not sensitive enough to changes in the market.
It has been suspected of plagiarism many times
According to Baidu Encyclopedia, Jiangnan Buyi was founded by Wu Jian and Li Lin, who initially opened a small shop in the Hangzhou clothing market. Li Lin first purchased goods from Guangdong, and then tried to design and set up a production line by herself. In 2016, Jiangnan Cloth was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to the Company's previously disclosed data, its total revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021 increased by 33.1% year-on-year to $4,126 million. In addition, net profit recorded 647 million yuan, up 86.7% year-on-year.
Among the local designer brands, many of the brands under Jiangnan Cloth have a certain degree of popularity. But it is in this context that the company with an annual revenue of more than 4 billion yuan has been exposed to suspected plagiarism many times.
According to Beijing Youth Daily, in February 2018, in the collaborative series between Jiangnan Clothing brand CROQUIS and artist Xu Zhen, a bag was forced to take down the shelves for allegedly plagiarizing the original works of St. Martin's emerging designer River Renjie Wang; in September of the same year, the video taken by Jiangnan Clothing's women's clothing brandless in cooperation with a creative short film platform was accused of plagiarizing the creativity of Hangzhou creative culture company Rookie Combo; in November of the same year, Independent designer Chen Peng posted on Weibo that a down jacket of the JNBY brand of Jiangnan Clothing Group was suspected of plagiarizing the works it released before August; in May 2020, netizen "Gu Er Page" pointed out that the new sandals launched by JNBY in the spring and summer of 2020 were suspected of plagiarizing the 2019 spring and summer sandals of a Korean brand.
Cheng Weixiong, general manager of Shanghai Liangqi Brand Management Co., Ltd., told the International Finance News that the fermentation of the children's clothing incident in Jiangnan Cloth can be seen that the mainstream culture of European and American fashion is dominated in the field of local fashion consumer goods, but under the impetus of the national tide, brand confidence, cultural confidence and consumer confidence need to truly return.
"Jiangnan Cloth should do these aspects at this time, first of all, all products with problematic reactions are recalled; second, self-examination and self-correction, changing the mainstream local culture of copying European and American culture to national tide culture to absorb nutrition; at the same time, Xiao jiangnan designers and related personnel are all dismissed; if the situation requires, it should suspend the business of Xiaojiangnan and stop business for rectification." Cheng Weixiong pointed out so.
"It's a profound lesson." Ma Gang told reporters that at present, consumer sovereignty awareness has awakened, China's export culture to the outside world has become the norm, whether it is consumers or brand owners, need to re-examine Chinese culture, the rise of Chinese consumers.
This article originated from the International Finance News
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