Balenciaga Parent To Hire ‘Brand Safety’ Chief Following ‘Child Abuse’ Backlash

Brazen-faced to a fault, Balenciaga has unusually kept its head down after being accused of promoting child abuse in a duo of insensitive campaigns last year. One of them featured children carrying bondage-themed teddy bears, while the other included a document about child pornography laws.

Now, its parent company Kering is introducing a new executive position in charge of “brand safety,” Chairman and CEO Francois-Henri Pinault announced to journalists at a conference sharing the group’s 2022 performance.

Pinault acknowledged that there were some “errors of judgment” when Balenciaga decided to launch the controversial advertisements, and that the conglomerate is going to “take extra steps” to prevent such tragedies from happening again.

The Kering CEO said the backlash had bored a deep dent into Balenciaga sales in the US, Britain, and the Middle East in the final quarter, and that Balenciaga has a lot to do “to restore its image in the United States.”

Kering’s new brand safety boss will evaluate future marketing and products on a group level and challenge them, predicting public perception for communications proposed by Kering-owned brands like Balenciaga, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Alexander McQueen.

Recently, Kering attempted to recover some of the damage by offering to fund the training of 2,000 professionals specialized in handling child abuse cases, as well as provide mental healthcare access to thousands of kids.

Kering says it will also enlist an external agency for an outside voice regarding advertising campaigns.

The move comes ahead of Balenciaga’s Paris fashion show on March 5, which will be “less theatrical” and serve as a reset for the company, Pinault expressed.

[via Business of Fashion / Reuters and MarketWatch, cover photo 237484462 © Tanya Keisha | Dreamstime.com