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1. I just eat pizza by hand. I am an international student from china. if someone asked to eat pizza with chopsticks, I would feel "what's wrong with you, I have hands". But this ask makes me feel like this acts like a punishment when someone loses in a party game. But in daily life, I would feel confused. Also, I do not think any Chinese people will eat pizza with chopsticks.

2.  I think the main thing D&G wanted to do with this campaign was to tell the Chinese audience about an upcoming fashion show in Shanghai. And this big show express the brand and the products to the Chinese audience. So I think they should take the idea of what the show is trying to say and incorporate some of the Chinese cultures and review their stereotypes to avoid it.

xiaoping huang -1198847

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1. I come from China. I don't pay much attention to pizza. I use knife and fork in western restaurants. When I pack pizza home, I may use chopsticks. So I don't think eating pizza with chopsticks will surprise me.

2. I think D&G is expected to make Chinese audiences who see this short film more interested in this transcultural combination so as to expand its brand influence in China. But this obviously failed. I think that when a brand wants to carry out transcultural publicity, it must put the recipient's culture first. Because these recipients are brands' target audience. If an advertisement only satisfies the sender, it will have no effect. Therefore, at the beginning of advertising design, company should consciously absorb the opinions of the audience, such as setting up a focus group to watch the sample film, and making changes according to feedback.

Seminar 7- Jiawei Liu 1195178

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The layout of this poster is simple and clear. The first half, Cultural difference, Humour and Chinese people’s reaction: a reinforce of negative cultural stereotypes, elaborate in detail on what the authors want to express and discuss. The next two Public's Voices are the finishing touches that resonate with me. I haven't been able to find anything in particular that needs improvement. It would be even better if there is a D&G designers apologizing video, I'm very curious.

1

I am an international student with an Asian cultural background. I would feel insulted and unhappy if someone ask me to eat pizza with chopsticks. Most of the time I eat pizza with my hands. But I also use chopsticks if the pizza is hot. Another benefit of using chopsticks is that I can finish pizza with one hand (compared with someone who needs knife and fork) and use the other hand to find something really 'humorous' from my phone.

2

This is D&G's most expensive failure. This failure cost not only money but also reputation. I think the original intention of the advertisement is to express that the collision of Eastern and Western cultures can be 'beautiful'. But the producers obviously don't understand Asian culture or are full of stereotypes. After all you can't send 'a cat' to do 'a dog' job (We don't eat cats and dogs. We just make them work for us really hard).
1242437--Manxi Shen

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Reaction to Dolce & Gabbana Racism, DG Great Show CANCELLED 杜嘉班纳辱华事件升级

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip66PNzmd6c

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Why are Chinese so Angry at Dolce & Gabbana? 2018 DG辱华广告 感想 NEW UPDATES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77fZGUE-zwk

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Comments:

1. I do eat pizza somethings, and I use my hand to grab it. I can eat pizza with chopsticks but I do not like people ask me to use chopsticks to eat pizza. I am OK with Chinese people eat pizza with chopsticks because  I respect everyone.

2. It is bad for D &G, and obviously most Chinese people do not like this ads. I think they should do research before making ads. Do not offense people from other countries. More respect is better.

------------Haoqing Wu 1191376

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1. How do you eat pizza? If you are a Chinese student, How do you feel if you are asked to eat pizza with chopsticks? If you are an international student, do you think Chinese people will eat pizza with chopsticks?

2. What situation and outcome did D&G want to achieve after publishing the video? Considering the incident in China, what would be a better way to achieve their purpose?

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We talk about the importance of advertising in trans-cultural communication through analysing the Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana's "Eating with Chopsticks" video series and the designer's apology video. The following conclusions were drawn:

In transcultural communication, different cultures have different norms of humour. Despite the fact that the advertising idea combining chopsticks with Italian cuisine was intended to reflect the collision of Chinese and Italian cultures, it was instead botched and caused controversy. The brand company did not really understand the cultural connotations of chopsticks. The model's actions were designed to seriously violate Chinese table manners and showed a lack of respect for Chinese culture.

Stereotypes are also present in the ads. The appearance of the models chosen by D&G with their single eyelids and small eyes The video's frequent squinting and mouth-covering gestures basically fit the stereotype of China in Western countries. Despite the fact that the advertisement is aimed at the Chinese market, the video content exaggerates the oriental image and lacks cultural sensitivity.

The difference between Chinese and Western cultures led to the deterioration of the incident. Body language, dress code, gestures and facial expressions when apologising are particularly important in China's high-context culture. However, the two designers did not pay attention to these details, leading to a new round of controversy.

Therefore, effective intercultural communication presupposes equality, mutual respect, and empathy.

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Many westerners think that the Chinese public reaction is overblown and viewed this as an error those luxury bands usually make.

Nevertheless, in terms of the cultural difference, in modern Chinese society on mainland China, the central government adopted a strong national ideology as the dominant reference for emotional transference and personal identification. So, in this case, the contents that are relevant to praising the nation and emphasizing the national spirit are more frequently used in the ads in China.

China-based social media users analyzed the non-verbal behavior in D&G’s apology and think it is insecure due to the frequent use of teleprompter and the too loose pants.  One of the designers also made a gesture which looked like contempt. China is a typical high-context culture, in which people communicate in a way that is implicit and rely heavily on context. High-context culture also highly values impersonal relationships and nonverbal communication. So, bowing and wearing formal suits are necessary for an apology in Chinese cultural context.

As a response to the wording used by the two designers in the apology video, "Our Instagram account has been hacked", which has created an uproar in China. Many Chinese people consider this apology indicates superiority and lack of responsibility. In this case, Chinese people normally praise the ones who are brave enough to take responsibility for their faults. On the contrary, western people think "admission of guilt can mark the beginning of legal and reputational difficulties to come" (Wang et al., 2020).

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In D&G’s short videos, an Asian model was awkwardly using chopstick eating western food, such as pasta and pizza. And a male dubbed those videos with a weird tone. It seems like that people who made those videos intended to amuse the audience to promote the brand itself.

But the fact proved that the brand’s intention was failed. Why?

According to Molla (2015), humour in transcultural communication is intended to be amusing and the receiver recognizes and identifies it as humour. And because different cultures have different norms concerning the suitable subject matter of humour (Martin, 2007), when humour was applied in transcultural communication, it could be easily cause communication breakdown if the speaker didn’t pay attention to norms of humour in another culture.

Humour could generate from awkward actions or words mostly based on cognitive dissonance. Using chopstick eating western food was a dissonant action. So, the video maker indeed wanted to amuse the audience. D&G as a global luxury fashion brand, it has consumers from all over the world including western world and China. These videos aroused wide repercussion in China, and finally the running show in Shanghai was cancelled. Chinese culture focus on the property or the courtesy which appears everywhere in Chinese people’s life including manners on table. The video content of an Asian model using chopsticks awkwardly eating western food seems to make fun of Chinese traditional culture. Therefore, for Chinese audience, this action was hard to be identified as humour. And furthermore, the Asian model in the video was slant-eyed which was commonly regarded as a stereotype towards Chinese people.

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Atwal, G., Bryson, D., & Kaiser, M. (2020). The chopsticks debacle: how brand hate flattened Dolce & Gabbana in China. Journal of Business Strategy.

Lippmann, W., & Curtis, M. (2017). Public opinion. Routledge.

Martin, R. A. (2007) The psychology of humor: an integrative approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.

Moalla, Asma. (2015). Intercultural strategies to co-construct and interpret humor. International Journal fo Applied Linguistics 25(3): pp 366-385.

Weichao, W., & Xiaoya, W. (2020). Stereotyping as a Barrier in Intercultural Marketing: An Analysis of Public Online Comments on Dolce & Gabbana’s Incident in China. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(2), 70.

Zhao, Wei. (2019). Advertising Thinking: To investigate the use of “the story” in creative advertising in the West and analyse its possible application in China. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Huddersfield]. University of Huddersfield Repository. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/35177/

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3. Chinese people’s reaction: a reinforce of negative cultural stereotypes

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3. Chinese people’s reaction: a reinforce of negative cultural stereotypes

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After the target video accumulated more views in social media, the reaction of Chinese people went through several stages—anger, amplification, antagonism, action, and apathy (Atwal et al., 2020), making the event remarkable. All netizens gave their voice and claimed that Chinese should boycott D&G because what the brand was doing is nothing but reinforcing the negative cultural stereotypes. Stereotype is a psychological concept which refers to the fixed impression or image of a group that is difficult to change based on social classification according to gender, race, age or occupation (Lippmann & Curtis, 2017; Weichao & Xiaoya, 2020). There are several stereotypes about Chinese, for example, Chinese restaurants cook cats and dogs, Chinese people are only good at math, and Chinese women are subordinate to men; these are false and incomplete. In the video series, a featured Chinese model inexpertly attempts to eat Italian dishes with chopsticks, which should be a common sense that Chinese do this as Italians and never use chopsticks. This deliberate plot design showed disrespect to Chinese culture and implied that Chinese people have no exposure to western societies, which offended Chinese people to a large extent. However, there was a doubt whether Chinese are too sensitive to this, which should be fully considered after hearing the public’s voice. Below are some videos of their voices.

This was definitely not an over-reaction. This is the protection of Chinese dignity by millions of Chinese people. Chinese people have a strong cultural identity and are proud of their culture.

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As the audience for the ad, we can see them trying to be humorous, but it is just not funny. However, it was not the ad that sparked most of the anger in China, but the "leaked DM" from the designer that showed the explicit racist remarks against the Chinese people. In fact, most Chinese people do not eat pizza with chopsticks, but, like everyone else, with their hands. Chopsticks are useful utensils, as are knives and forks, and so are your hands.

We chose this text to find out what is the perception of humour by people from different cultures? And the stereotype is perceived by the storyteller or the audience, and whether this is a variable for different cultural backgrounds.

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This text is a set of commercials called "Eating with Chopsticks" that Italian luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana released in 2018 to promote their upcoming big fashion show event in Shanghai. The show finally was cancelled due to a boycott by mainland Chinese celebrities, with losses estimated at the time to be over $10 million.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBFC5isQuYA

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💣💣Full Commercial ｜ Dolce and Gabbana China ｜ Full Ads