The Power of Social Media: For or Against It

Course Title: BUS1125 – Business Professionalism

Professor: Khushboo Sherwani
Prepared By: Pawandeep Singh (A00305253)
Group: HR1.3-7
Winter, 2024
The Role of Public Relations Officer:
I would like to sincerely apologize to all the people and customers of H&M who have been
disturbed or are angry with our recent launch Sweatshirt that had written “Coolest monkey in the
jungle” on it. We did not intend at any point to play around anyone’s emotions or sensitivities.
We accept full responsibility for the heartbreak and distress that it may cause people. H and M is
a company with different cultures, religions, genders, and ethnicity. It is not only among the
customers, but also does it concerns employees and staff members that different cultural groups
can be observed, which we encourage. We want to inform all customers that sweatshirt prints are
being discontinued and pictures taken from every country, which have upset people’s emotions,
will be banned. In addition to this, we will ensure that there is a full internal investigation of the
processing team who approved these sweatshirt prints and initiate a picture campaign on kids
wearing this print. In the name of the whole H and M team, we are extremely sorry for this
incident. We promise that no such mistake will be committed by us in future.
The Role of enraged customer:
It is so unethical and disgraceful for a company of its magnitude to engage in such an act. How
can any marketing team believe that it is okay for a black child to wear sweatshirt inscribed with
“Coolest monkey in the jungle”. Such a large multinational company has no space for such
mistakes. In terms of approving any new launch, there are big processing teams and simply
saying that it was unintentional does not make sense at all because the H&M team seems to want
just to get off from this matter. It also looks like a publicity stunt because it is so evident that
black people have suffered such discrimination. And committing such an act in this decade
appears to be deliberate. All I can tell the customers of H and M; they should boycott this
company that does not respect all races.
As per my personal view, Companies therefore should be more careful since all retail
companies do not have one ethnicity as customers but various. Thus, I believe that just an
apology could not make people feel better because they cannot forget how a black child was used
as the way to deliver this shameful message written on sweatshirt. Therefore, I fully agree that a
customer would be very angry and upset if such incidents occur.