The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 1994
Giordano's founder insulted China's premier — and Beijing closed his store
Jimmy Lai called Li Peng a 'son of a turtle's egg' in 1994. Giordano's Beijing store was shuttered, and its China expansion stalled for years.
Giordano International
What happened
Giordano was one of Hong Kong's most successful casualwear brands, founded by Jimmy Lai in 1981. By 1991 it had entered mainland China, and by 1992 had established a regional office in Beijing. The brand was growing fast in the world's biggest retail market.
In 1994, founder Jimmy Lai gave an interview in which he called Chinese Premier Li Peng a 'son of a turtle's egg' — a grave insult in Chinese culture. The backlash was immediate. Giordano's Beijing store was closed, and the company's China expansion effectively halted. The incident became a textbook case of how a founder's personal remarks can destroy a brand's position in a sensitive market.
Giordano eventually rebuilt its China business under new leadership, operating 486 stores in Greater China by the 2020s. But the 1994 incident cost the company years of lost momentum in a market that was just beginning its retail boom. Lai was eventually forced out of the company he founded, and the Cheng family took control of Giordano in 2022.
Why it happened
- A founder's personal political remarks became inseparable from the brand in China's political environment — Giordano had no mechanism to distance the company from Lai's statements.
- Lai treated his role as founder and public figure as an asset until it became a liability. The same outspokenness that built his brand in Hong Kong destroyed it in mainland China.
- Giordano had no contingency for a founder-driven crisis — no succession plan, no crisis communications, and no way to separate the brand from its creator in the market that mattered most.
The lesson
A founder's personal voice is a brand asset until the day it is not — in markets where politics and commerce touch, the company needs a crisis plan that can separate the two.
Sources
- Giordano International — Wikipedia
- How Jimmy Lai went from refugee to convicted activist — BBC News
- Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong rags-to-riches media tycoon who became fierce critic of Beijing — CNBC TV18
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