UPDATE: Thierry Gillier slaps own face with Zadig & Voltaire saga: industry sounds off

Peter Mack, executive director of marketing for Greater China at Landor Associates, thinks this was an unfortunate turn of events for Gillier. "He was not targeting the Chinese per se," Mack infers. "Had he being saying this in the '70s he would have said 'Japanese', and in the '50s he would have said 'Americans'. Rather than being racist, he was being snobbish."

Gillier's snobbishness is a tad ironic to Mack since according to him, Zadig & Voltaire is not considered top-shelf luxury in France, but "is itself looked down on by some of the wealthy".

Indeed, the original idea behind Zadig & Voltaire was to offer luxury at an affordable price, but Gillier clearly wants the brand to take the route of exclusivity, which has made him notorious and led some to criticise him as arrogant. Gillier said in a statement that he admitted expressing himself in an “inappropriate way to explain that his hotel was not suited to mass tourism".

"Many times we forget where we come from. In Italy, most luxury brands started off as exquisite and small workshops of craftsmanship, points out Gianluca Cinquepalmi, managing director of Milan design agency 1.618.

"Many Western brands lost their identity in the course of time. This results in an inappropriate attitude where luxury is synonymous with arrogance and excess, while it should really be about rareness and uniqueness. I don't believe this attitude is healthy for brands or consumers. We should go back to basics," he laments.

"This issue in today's social media age more than ever reminds us all—never say or do anything you could not defend if it appeared on the front page of the Sunday newspaper," says Michael Moszynski, founder and CEO of London Advertising.

Gillier's one offensive utterance clearly caused reverberations thousands of miles away in China, where netizens are far from disconnected from the outside world. Moszynski believes Gillier's subsequent apology was genuine but did not repair the damage done.

The power of social media, "both as a means of promulgating the remark and amping up the responses to it, reinforces the lesson that one must be true to one's brand in all media and in all situations", Mack said.

Despite the branding damage, Elan Shou, senior vice-president at Ruder Finn China, questions whether this is a crisis or an opportunity. "An unknown brand suddenly gets famous in the China market [after] one ‘mistake’ plus one ‘apology’," she says.

However Shou points out that brand awareness may have been built, but not preference. "Awareness can easily fade in a crowded market such as China, therefore how to sustain it and turn the issue into a real opportunity will be the key."

For a start, a "nice attitude" helps, says Shou. Gillier’s "naivety and negligence is outstanding in today's global society, though he isn’t the first and won't be the last", adds Bobby Tsang, regional business development director at the Gate Worldwide.

"Western businessmen must realise that you can’t have your cake and eat it—on one hand looking to utilise the massive luxury spending power of the Chinese population and on the other discriminating them on their level of sophistication," Tsang says.

In fact, on the touchy topic of the Chinese being unsophisticated, Westerners have to revisit their mentality and perceptions, according to Tsang. "The West has only been a dominant force in the last couple of centuries. Since the days of Alexander the Great; culture and sophistication have always come from the East," he said.

Tsang's comment echoes others, who state China is not assuming world superpower status but regaining it.

Just how long it will take to regain that status is anyone's guess, and meanwhile Kara Yang, executive director of strategy for Greater China at Landor Associates, agrees that there is no need for Gillier to stereotype the Chinese, whether Freudian slip or not, as it does him no favours.

"I understand that Z&V wants to position the hotel for a very specific target group. Instead of saying who they don't want, they should have said who they want. Highlight a tailored brand experience for the wanted [tourists], that will naturally make the brand irrelevant to the 'unwanted'," she suggests.

Douglas Young, founder of Hong Kong lifestyle retail shop G.O.D., acknowledges that he sometimes feels embarrassed when he comes across Chinese compatriots in his travels who do not observe international conduct.

Still, racism cannot be condoned, says Young, who is currently in London attending an art fair partly sponsored by Zadig & Voltaire. "They gave away a cute tote bag that says 'Zadig loves art' which I've been carrying around town," he tells Campaign Asia-Pacific. "Had I known this earlier, I would have added '...but not the Chinese!' to the end."