Gasp caught astroturfing, has ‘no regrets’ about ‘GaspFail’ social media furore
Gasp Jeans, which found itself in the middle of a social media storm when its outrageous response to a disgruntled customer went viral in September, has courted more controversy after the company was accused of astroturfing around negative comments made about the brand.
A poster appeared on websites of The Punch, Moxie and SEO firm Stew Art Media, defending the response of the brand to the unhappy customer with exactly the same comment left on each site.
Jacqui's comment on The Punch
Stew Art Media later discovered that the IP address of the commenter matched with a poster from Gasp called Eddie, and reported its findings.
Gasp’s retail business manager David McMann told Mumbrella that he had no knowledge of the comments made, and was “disappointed” if an employee had done so – because it went against Gasp’s approach to social media.
McMann said that even with the benefit of hindsight after the social media furore of two months ago, the company would not have behaved any differently.
“A PR agency advised us that we should have distanced ourselves from our employee, apologised, addressed the comments made about us, and entered reputation management mode,” McMann said.
“We ignored their advice.”
“I know this may sound silly – but the whole episode has been very positive for us. Our only regret is that the hysteria didn’t last longer. Ten days after the response of our employee went viral, we had our best week of turnover for the year,” he said.
“Sadly after the hysteria died down, sales returned to normal.”
McMann revealed that Gasp had offered to double the salary of the complainant, Keara, a sales assistant in the retail industry, with a position at head office. But she had declined.
She also declined to participate in an exclusive interview with Today Tonight after the story broke.
“If someone has the ability to create such hysteria around what happens every day in retail in Australia, I want her working for us,” said McMann.
Gasp has increased its retail presence from four to nine stores in 18 months, and has plans to increase its presence to 20 stores by the end of 2012.
“The retail industry is stuffed, no doubt about it,” McMann added. “But our unorthodox approach is what has made us successful. We have done the opposite of what we’ve been told to do by PR firms, and the results have been outstanding.”
I think it’s great that they’ve created a brand with which the people you don’t want to talk to can display what’s inside on the packet. Similarly in Germany it was very handy that the neo-nazis chose a certain clothing brand. Made them very easy to avoid.
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I think this is pure fAiL.
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I think what GASP did was pure genius. Finally a brand that does not apologise for not conforming to the clichés. Love it, a fashion store with attitude!
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“If someone has the ability to create such hysteria around what happens every day in retail in Australia, I want her working for us”
Um, you can have her guys.
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@jacqui Luvyawork!
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+1 Jacqui. Gold.
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Cheap clothes at ridiculous prices – if they can use that tactic and makes sales good luck to them. The real idiots are the people still shopping there when better quality clothes/brands and more affordable prices are out there.
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I would love to see their sales resutls.
2 GASP stores have closed in the last 6 months.
One in Chapel street and one in Flinders Lane.
time will tell
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What a douche bag staff and company, the only thing will be be famous for will be in ‘How not to handle PR/social media’ case studies…
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Foolish and short sighted.
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Most of the publicity I saw focused on how bad the clothes are so I’d love to see those sales results too.
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For every 1 handwringing, whiny post after articles like this, 10,000 regular folk were introduced to the Gasp brand on primetime TV
i’d say that while it’s a FAIL in terms of the overweight keyboard warriors audience it’s a marketing success as far as Gasp’s skinny bimbo customers are concerned
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@digitalmediaboy I think the on on Chapel St simply moved address to another Chapel St address.
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These guys are the Ed Hardy of 2011.
Good luck to them and all that wear their clothes.
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I am travelling / researching in Japan at present in the land where the customer is always number 1. Your post reminds me of just how bad customer service is in Australia. The Australian Tourism Industry is spending millions of dollars to try and attract Japanese back to Australia. But customer service is so appalling in Australia, the cost of travelling and staying in Japan on average for a business hotel costs half that of Australia and eating out cost twice as much in Australia as Japan in general. The GASP example of bad customer service is one of many cases in Australia and I really need to write that book on the absence of customer service in the land of the rising prices – Australia. .
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That is just poor form. Imagine an LV shop assistant talking like that to a customer. The fact that their sales figure went up post this event might have more to do with the racing calender than the fact that Chris is such a great 6th sense fashion guru. Vomit…their attitude is more low brow than their outfits. There should be a public burning of their outfits.
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They forget to mention that they also went on sale several days later. Advertised as in their window as 50-10% off. Um try 10-50% off.
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What about their “superstar sales person” Chris? Really if he was really good at sales (liked they claimed) he would not be earning $20 per hour he should be in sales earning at least $80k a year! Besides if you liked their clothes why buy retail when you can buy the clothes for half the price including shipping from the USA!
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I’m so happy the Aus Dollar is doing so well… no need to deal with bad service and overpriced goods anymore. Don’t really have to care about silly stores like GASP.
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Could it really be that all publicity is good publicity? I really hope not.
The reality is that the consumer isn’t an idiot. She’s the person who keeps you in business and deserves respect.
Matt Chidgey was an ass (might still be). His email had way too much poor grammar and poor spelling. It was an awful look for GASP that his email was allowed represent the company’s official position. Worse still that he was allowed to represent the company on TV.
If their response was an accurate picture of their approach to consumer relations, their business won’t survive.
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Appalling! And just one of the many, many reasons i now shop online. The risk of getting a garment not quite perfect outweighs the harassment from sales people.
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