Pandoro is a traditional star-shaped sweet bread dusted with powdered sugar and is a popular holiday treat in Italy. It is rivaled only by panettone, a domed Milanese cake filled with candied oranges, lemons and raisins. According to newswire ANSA, Italians spent 330 million euros on Christmas cakes last December.
Unsurprisingly, Italy’s antitrust authority AGCM (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) announced on December 15 that Chiara Ferragni, the country’s most successful fashion influencer, and Turin-based Cookie and cake manufacturer Barocco, the media quickly dubbed the issue “Pandoro Gate” due to misleading charity work associated with Pandoro.
AGCM fined them more than 1 million euros and 420,000 euros, respectively, and prosecutors in Milan and the Piedmont city of Cuneo also announced that they would soon launch a criminal investigation.
Italy’s public relations authority AGCOM (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni) came to the fore on January 10 with a series of strict new measures applied to influencers who post in Italian and collaborate with Italian brands. announced the rules. At least 1 million followers across social media platforms and an engagement rate of at least 2%. AGCOM said a new code of conduct for influencers will be followed.
What exactly is “Pandoro Gate”? In late 2022, Ferragni agreed to promote a special “Pink Christmas” Barocco Pandoro, covered in pink powdered sugar, and was apparently paid more than €1 million for the branding effort. Both promoted the cake in connection with their charity work for a children’s hospital in Turin.
However, the Regina Margherita Hospital said that it had only received a one-off donation of 50,000 euros from Barocco before the campaign with Ferragni, meaning that the Christmas cake sales had no impact on the donations received, and that Ferragni was not at all Not contributing.
AGCM said the Pandoro campaign deliberately misled consumers into believing that their cake purchases were supporting hospitals. Ferragni then publicly apologized for the “miscommunication” and donated €1 million to the Regina Margherita Hospital, but the matter opened something of a “Pandoro” box of legal problems. According to reports, prosecutors have also linked Ferragni to the Dolci Preziosi campaign, which included chocolate Easter eggs, and to selling dolls resembling Ferragni in 2019, with the proceeds supporting anti-bullying organizations. They say they are investigating.
The millennial fashionista shot to fame in Milan in 2009 with the launch of her blog The Blonde Salad, and has since parlayed that success into a clothing and shoe line, earning her a high-profile board position. For Ferragni, “Pandoro Gate” also risks wider implications. According to WWD, consumer reaction to the fiasco was overwhelmingly negative, and major brands have since ended their partnership with Ferragni.
But she is not the only one facing public judgment. As a Bloomberg op-ed columnist suggested this week:[t]While Ferragni’s ouster could be seen as an isolated blow to the estimated $250 billion influencer industry, Italy is often at the forefront of the intersection of technology and fashion, so it’s no surprise that the wind blows. It could also be a broader warning of change.
It seems like no one is dreaming of a pink Christmas anymore.