Lululemon Recalls Sheer Pants
Lululemon Athletica is an expensive line of active wear for both men and women that has been under the media spotlight for multiple reasons over the past couple of years.
In March of 2013, Lululemon recalled all of its black yoga pants for being too sheer hence making the items see through. This alone caused shares of the company to fall by 6%. To make matters worse, the employees of many Lululemon stores reacted in quite an inconsiderate manner. While employees should have been extremely conducive with customers’ wants and needs, instead they violated their customers, and made them uncomfortable. Employees asked multiple customers to physically bend over while in the store in order to receive their refunds. One customer, in Canada, was asked to put on the leggings, bend over in the light, and allow the employee to stare at her bottom to decide whether or not they were see through. The customer said she felt “degraded,” and afterwards, the employee deemed the pants not sheer enough for a refund.
Christine Day, Lululemon’s CEO, responds,
“The truth of the matter is the only way you can actually test for the issue is to put the pants on and bend over.”
While this may be the case, this was a completely ineffective response and Luluemon’s stock continued to suffer from this incident. This is an example of Situational Theory.
Lululemon’s CEO, Christine Day, never apologized, and instead resigned from the company.
Her reaction is both an example of the active and passive response:
–Active in that she stepped down
–Passive in that she didn’t try to salvage her consumer base with a simple apology
As for the publics, their response was active. After customers were degraded repeatedly, they made their voice heard. A Facebook page (now removed) was created in which multiple customers voiced their dissatisfaction with the company’s response to a crisis which was entirely the company it self’s fault, and shares of their stock fell by 6%.
There are three variables that help a company predict how their consumers will react to an issue.
- Problem recognition-the acknowledgement of an issue. It is caused by a difference in the ideal state, and the consumer’s perceived state of an issue. – high
- Constraint recognition-to what degree consumer’s see their behavior limited by factors which they cannot control. – high
- Level of involvement- measure of how emotionally or personally a certain problem can be for an individual consumer. – high
This is not an ideal balance for Lululemon. Consumers recognized the problem, felt as though there was nothing they could do to control it, and were extremely embarrassed both emotionally and physically. In return, Lululemon did absolutely no damage control, thus explaining why their stocks fell drastically.
In this example, Lululemon as a whole did a horrible job of communicating with their client base proactively. While most of the publics were active, Lululemon did not respond in the same active manner. The company did not give any of their customers extra attention, and instead began a search for a new CEO, and continued business; making sure that their new line would be less see through: quite a passive reaction.
It is true that public relations strategies do not always have to be blatant, but Lululemon firing Christine Day did not send a clear enough message to consumers that a situation such as this would never occur again. They should have responded to this crisis in a more visible and dramatic way.
Sources:
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Yoga-Clothing-Company-Asks-Customers-to-Bend-Over-199766521.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2298824/Lululemon-making-customers-bend-verify-sheerness-recalled-yoga-pants-issuing-refund.html
By: Leigh Citerella