Chiara Ferragni built a multimillion-dollar empire on her image, and now a discrediting problem is getting her into trouble. The reason is a controversial, supposedly charitable campaign that earned her a million euro fine for “wrong business practices” and forced her to apologize via a video posted on her profiles.
Last year, the influencer and the confectionery company Balocco launched a “Pandoro”, a typical Christmas cake, with the Ferragni logo and at 9 euros it cost three times the usual price. A note on the product packaging suggested that the sale of each would mean a donation to the Regina Margherita Children's Hospital in Turin, but the truth is that the donation of 50,000 euros was made by Balocco alone before the sweets were sold Sales and Ferragni collected one million euros from this campaign.
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In a video published on Instagram, the network that gave birth to her and where she daily promotes her own and other brands and flaunts her luxurious life, Ferragni apologized for appearing at the Pandoro edition made a “communication error” and announced that she would donate the million euros she had won to the Turin hospital. It is the latest publication on their networks, where there has been unusual silence for days.
But far from abating, the storm has intensified and the Italian influencer, one of the most followed on the planet, has found herself in the eye of a hurricane that threatens her empire of 30 million followers. This is the first major setback for Ferragni, who has always been on a steady rise, at the helm of a perfectly oiled machine and amassing collaborations and sponsorships that have brought a profit of 10 million euros in 2022 from his image alone.
Today, more cases of dubious charity campaigns are coming to light, several sponsors and companies are terminating their collaboration, he is experiencing the biggest loss of followers since he came to the attention of the networks, and the judiciary is investigating his movements. An explosive cocktail for the 36-year-old Milan businesswoman who started her fashion blog The Blonde Salad in 2009, ended up making a fortune, earned a master's degree from Harvard Business School and has so far turned everything she has into gold. touched, like the water bottles it sells with its logo for 8 euros.
Chiara Ferragni at Lancome
The prosecutor's office is investigating two campaigns for the sale of Easter eggs, packaged in their classic pink color and with their anagram, sold in 2021 and 2022 by the company Dolci Preziosi, which promised to contribute to a charitable project in favor of the inclusion of children with autism. It was noted that the collection exceeded one million euros, while the donation was only 36,000 euros. Investigators will try to determine whether this was a commercial operation disguised as a charity.
Amid the downpour, Italian group Safilo, which specializes in high-end eyewear, announced that it was terminating its collaboration with Ferragni “after the owner breached contractual obligations,” as explained in a statement. The company, owner of brands such as Carrera and Polaroid and designer of other brands such as Carolina Herrera and Jimmy Choo, did not specify what breach of contract was involved.
Although her legion of followers is huge and includes almost 30 million from all over the world, in less than a week since the Balocco case broke, the Italian has lost around 90,000 followers, 0.3% of her community. The company DeRev, which specializes in digital strategy and communication, analyzed the data from Ferragni's networks for the newspaper La Repubblica: “Contrary to what you might imagine, the downward curve of followers has not weakened since the apology video, but in fact has increased. ” more; “Especially with regard to the audience on Instagram, this matter represents the first real setback for Chiara Ferragni and the largest loss of followers in the history of her account,” they noted. And they have also highlighted that user comments on the influencer's latest publications are generally negative, especially in the entries in the commercial collaborations section, where the Italian businesswoman promotes various brands. These notes are significant considering that social networks are the cornerstone of the Ferragni empire.
The case caused such a stir in Italy that it not only occupied prominent places in the information and opinion sections of most newspapers and television programs, but also reached politics. Even Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attacked the influencer in one of her speeches, although without directly quoting her. While the politician highlighted the government's activities over the last year and criticized the opposition, she attacked Ferragni in an aggressive tone: “The real role model is not the influencers who make a lot of money from clothes or showing bags or even very expensive advertising make cakes that they use to trick people into thinking they're doing charity, but the price of which only serves to pay for the millionaires' caches. The real example to follow are those who invent, design and produce this Italian excellence,” said the Prime Minister, raising her voice, at an event organized by her party’s youth.
Giorgia Meloni used the news of the Pandoro and Ferragni's prominence to generally discredit the work of influencers, which, in her opinion, is less noble than others because it “promotes” objects instead of “producing” them. His direct attack on an Italian businesswoman like Ferragni was also widely criticized in the transalpine country as inappropriate.
Chiara Ferragni did not respond to the insult, but the rapper Fedez, the influencer's husband, commented on his networks that he found it “strange” that Meloni “attacked people who work on the Internet instead of focusing on political issues to concentrate”. “Did you talk about youth unemployment? No. Did he talk about the financial maneuver they're doing with their asses and how they're not done yet? No. Have you talked about the country's fiscal pressures? No. “Be careful of people who work on the Internet”: this is our Prime Minister’s priority,” said the singer.