Issue LIfe CyCLe and sentIment anaLysIsCOMU2005 ASSESSMENT 1 | Stephanie Brownlee | 42880097

COntentsSITUATIONAL CONTEXT

LIFE CYCLE OF THE ISSUE

SENTIMENT ANALYSIS

CONCLUSION

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The DKNY Copywrite Infringement IssueBrandon Stanton –renowned for his photographic proj-ect, Humans of New York (HONY) declined $15,000 from Donna Karen New York (DKNY) for the use of 300 of his photographs. Without consent, the pictures ap-peared in a Bangkok DKNY store. Opposed to taking legal action, Brandon requested a $100,000 donation to charity. DKNY responded with $25,000.

The incident is an insightful case for analysis as it caused three significant waves of outcry across Face-book, Twitter, Tumblr, news media and the blogosphere. Although many posts regarding the subject on both DKNY and HONY platforms have since been removed, the situational context and lifecycle as well as the public sentiment towards the issue and the stakeholder strategies involved are traceable.

The issue is also revelant to public relations situations as it identifies an interesting shift in communica-tive power in terms of the ‘David & Goliath’ concept of corporations ruling over individuals. An analysis of the situation reveals the hegemony of Brandon and his supporters and their influence on DKNY’s public perception and crisis management strategies.

ratIOnaL fOr anaLysIs

the Issue

1. Humans of New York. [2013]. In Facebook [Fan page]. Retrieved April, 2013 from http://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?fref=ts

1.

• Stanton makes a statement3 about the issue and shares his goal of “taking something negative and turning it into something positive”4 and proposes fans and supporters raise $75,000 for the summer camp charity.

• By this stage DKNY are deleting negative posts on their social media platforms.

sItuatIOnaL COnteXt

25th FEBURARY 2013 1st MARCH 201327th FEBURARY 2013 3rd MARCH 2013 Onwards

2nd MARCH 2013

Issue tImeLIne

Key staKehOLders

NOVEMBER NOVEMBER /DECEMBER

BaCKGrOund2010 20122011 2013

and Aliza Licht, SVP Global Communications at Donna Karan International & DKNY PR GIRL @dkny

26th FEBURARY 2013 28th FEBURARY 2013

Brandon Stanton starts the photographic project, Human’s of New York.2

According to Stanton’s Face-book4, Tumblr2 and Twitter3 posts, he is approached by DKNY in this time period with an offer of $15,000 for the use of 300 of his photos in store window displays. Stanton Declines.

• Stanton posts on Facebook4, Tumblr2 and Twitter3 his discoverey that DKNY has used his photos in a Bangkok store window without permission. He requests they donate $100,000 to the YMCA in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn on his behalf.

• News media (such as Huffington Post and the Guard-ian) respond to the issue objectively. There is the firsy surge of negative sentiment towards DKNY on both DKNY and HONY platforms.

• DKNY release an apology and announce their $25,000 donation on their Tumblr2, Facebook4 and twitter page. •Stanton responds to the apology on those platforms. •Further News and social media response. DKNY recieves a second surge of negative comments.

• Stanton posts on Face-book4 and Twitter3 that $32,000 has been raised so far. Further news and social media response.

• Further news and social media response. Negative comments on DKNY plat-forms continue.

• Stanton posts on Face-book4 and Twitter2 that $50,000 has been raised.

•Stanton posts on Facebook4 and Twitter3 that they are only $12,000 off raising the goal of $75,000

• Negative comments on DKNY platforms continue.

Stanton posts that the goal of $75,000 had been passed and asks if they will be able to raise $100,000.

• Stanton’s Last FB post4 and tweet2 regarding DKNY. He posts a sum-mary of the last 3 days and that they have reached $100,000 in donations. Stanton asks that DKNY match this saying, “I would appreciate if you would SHARE this post, and lend your voice to my request that DKNY raise their donation to match the $103,710 that we raised. “

•A third major surge of outcry occurs on the DKNY page with people show-ing their dissaproval and requesting and demanding they match the money raised by HONY supporters.

• DKNY continues to recieve negative comments, reuqests and demands to match the money raised by HONY sup-porters. One of he most recent being on the 14th April 2013.

Brandon Stanton, the photographer who created the prject, Humans of New York.

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Followers and publics of both DKNY and HONY

YMCA in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

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•There is now no trace of the DKNY PR Girl’s tweets regard-ing the issue.• BBC News reports on the

issue.

Stephanie Brownlee

2. Stanton, B. (2013). Humans of New York [Tumblr]. Retrieved April, 2013 from http://www.humansofnewyork.com3. Brandon Stanton Humans of New York [2013]. Twitter Feed. Retrieved April, 2013 from https://twitter.com/humansofny4. Humans of New York. [2013]. In Facebook [Fan page]. Retrieved April, 2013 from http://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?fref=ts

LIfe CyCLe Of the IssueBased on Google Trends and Social Baker Facebook Page Analysis

January 2013 Feburary 2012 March 2013 April 2013

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(Febuary 25 - March 3rd) Key:• Brandon Stanton search trend• Humans of New York search trend• DKNY as a trending topic on FacebookemerGInG (e)

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aCCeLeratIOn (a)

resOuLtIOn (r)

CrIsIs (C)

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The graph below visually represents the life cycle of the DKNY copywrite infringement issue. As detailed in the Key, the dark blue line traces the google search trend of the name of stakeholder, Brandon Stanton5, the red line follows the google search trend of the phrase, ‘Humans of New York’5 and the light blue line represents how many people are talking about DKNY on Facebook6. These three data lines follow a similar path, accelerating, peaking and declin-ing almost simultaneously between the 25th of Feburary and the 3rd of March. This reflects the evolution of the issue and indicates where the four life cycle stages (emerging, acceleration, crisis and resolution) occured in terms of the search of and social media interest in DKNY and HONY publics.

----------------------------------->Development

THESPARK

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20

40

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100 (Search Peak)

31,927 talking about DKNY

5. Google (2013). Google Trends. Retrieved April 2013, from http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=humans%20of%20new%20york%2C%20Brandon%20Stanton&cmpt=q6. Social Bakers (2013, April). Social Bakers. Retrieved April 2013, from 13. www.socialbakers.com/facebook-pages/92062730134-dkny7. Humans of New York. [2013]. In Facebook [Fan page]. Retrieved April, 2013 from http://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?fref=ts

7.

Stephanie Brownlee

sentIment anaLysIsaCCeLeratIOn

CrIsIs

CrIsIs COntInued1

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As support grew for Stanton on the 25th, negativity towards DKNY increased. Sentiment collected via Twitter analytics tool, Sentiment 1409 indicates 91% of 5,000 tweets col-lected from 10 a.m onwards that day reflected negatively against DKNY. The top hashtags were #DKNY and #HONY, #PR, #photography, #fashion and #copy-right.Later that day, DKNY posted an apology on Tumblr10, Twitter11 and Facebook12 and announced they would be donating $25,000.

resOLutIOn3

Stephanie Brownlee

25th Feburary

As dicussed previous-ly, Stanton’s first post (adjacent) on the 25th Feburary8 regarding DKNY’s use of his photos was the prima-ry public mention of the issue.

The posts number of ‘Likes’ and ‘Shares’ displays public sup-port of Stanton and the donation to the YMCA.

Stanton’s 9 major comments8 (see situational context) regarding the issue from the 25th Feburary to the 3rd of March show that each post recieved an average of...

12,498 6,109and ‘s

CrIsIs COntInued

THESPARK

Whilst an analysis of tweets from the 26th of Feburary9 (adjacent) shows a decrease in negative sentiment after the apology, the ability of Sentiment 1409 to distin-guish the intended nature of certain tweets is question-able. Indeed there may have been less negativity towards DKNY, however it should be noted, many tweets that were deemed ‘neutral’ were in support of Stanton, HONY and donating the full $100,000 to the YMCA.

As DKNY’s donation of $25,000 was only a quarter of the requested $100,000, negative sentiment con-tinued, especially on their Facebook Page12.

Viral Heat, a social sentiment extension tool for google chrome indicates there were approximately 2,000 posts between the 25th of Feburary and the 13th of April on the DKNY page12. It also suggest that only 15% of these are positive, 45% are neutral and 40% are negative. Again it should be noted, the accu-racy of sentiment analysis tools is questionable and DKNY has deleted a number of posts. However, as one Facebooker who commented on the DKNY page estab-lished (see comments), the majority of the posts from the 25th onwards support HONY, Stanton and the YMCA and or are anti DKNY.12

DKNY PAGE COMMENTS SAMPLE

Despite recieving a substantial amount of negative sentiment towards the brand, DKNY’s Facebook fan base grew steadily throughout the life cycle of the issue13. This could indicate a lack of awareness outside the HONY supporting public or be testimony to the notion that all publicity is good publicity.

DKNY FANS

COnCLusIOn

Stephanie Brownlee

The DKNY copywrite infringement issue presents an insightful case for crisis analysis in regards to public relations issues management. Although it remains to be seen whether or not DKNY will make a further donation to the YMCA, it is indicated by the lifecycle of the crisis reflecting google search trends and facebook discussion trends that the issue is gradually recieving less attention. Due to the nature of social media crises, it is likely the situation will continue to become decreasingly prominent in terms of public interest until it is no longer trending.

As a key stakeholder and a primary source, Brandon Stanton first communicated the issue to the public by posting the issue across three highly interactive and densely net-worked social media paltforms,Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter. In being the instigator of news and social media discussion on the topic and essentially, DKNY’s public relations crisis, it is likely Stanton was able to anticipate his stance on the issue to some degree. From the start he established himself as an individual who had been unlawfully exploit-ed by a large company but also also as a person with a conscious who had admirably requested a donation to charity as compensation.

Due to the issues sudden initation and fast negative acceleration through the public sphere, it is quite likely that DKNY’s public relations professionals had very little chance of preempting the issue and planning response strategies during the emerging stage. Despit this, DKNY and their ‘PR Girl’, Aliza Licht were successful in responding quick-ly, posting an apology across Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. However, as evident in the sentiment analysis, the fact that DKNY suggested an excuse for the issue and only a quarter of the requested donation caused further social media outcry. It is possible DKNY didn’t properly project the second wave of negative response that their comment would provoke. As HONY followers said, if they had matched the requested donation they would have avoided a large amount of the ensuing negative sentiment.

As DKNY did not donate the $100,000 this opened an opportunity for Stanton, who had been involved in fund raising for causes in the past, to engage his followers to help him raise the money for the YMCA. As he requested that DKNY match what HONY supporters made and they did not respond, this caused further negative sentiment towards DKNY.

Stanton “took something negative and turned it into something positive” and as a result, gained approximately 100,000 new Facebook fans. Whilst DKNY’s Facebook fan base is still increasing and the issue is losing interest, the previous analysis reveals the way in which DKNY handled the issue was likely more reputation damaging than it would have been if they had strategised and implemented a more publically acceptable issue re-sponse.

8. Humans of New York. [2013]. In Facebook [Fan page]. Retrieved April, 2013 from http://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?fref=ts9. Sentiment 140 (2013). Sentiment 140. Retrieved April 2013, from https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize10. Licht, A. (2013). DKNY PR Girl [Tumblr]. Retrieved April, 2013 from http://dknyprgirl.tumblr.com/11. Aliza Licht DKNY [2013]. Twitter Feed. Retrieved April, 2013 from https://twitter.com/dkny12. DKNY. [2013]. In Facebook [Fan page]. Retrieved April, 2013 from http://www.facebook.com/DKNY?fref=ts13. Social Bakers (2013, April). Social Bakers. Retrieved April 2013, from 13. www.socialbakers.com/facebook-pages/92062730134-dkny