Dior’s Sauvage Ad Campaign Disaster

The case takes place in August 2019, right after Dior has released a teaser mini film for its coming advertising campaign for the Sauvage perfume. The teaser has led to a lot of criticism and accusations of cultural appropriation and overall lack of cultural sensitivity from journalists and on social media. The firm’s Brand Manager is struggling to understand the crisis as he has worked with multiple stakeholders to develop the campaign, including the brand’s main celebrity endorser, Johnny Depp, and the Americans for Indigenous Opportunity organization. The first reaction was to pull all communications released with the teaser. Now the manager must decide whether to go ahead with the campaign and how to change the public opinion toward the brand.