Actually, they’re pretty bad at marketing too…
(But more on that later)
So everyone is up in arms over Abercrombie’s stance on
sizing – particularly as it pertains to girls.
(In case you’ve been
living under a rock – CEO Mike Jeffries recently came under fire for statements
made long ago about not manufacturing clothes in larger sizes for women). Read More.
Is Abercrombie doing
anything wrong?
Fundamentally speaking, no. (I said FUNDAMENTALLY)
Good Marketers know you have to stand for something. You
can’t be all things to all people and still expect to build an iconic brand.
Targeting is what sets you apart from the rest – a fact that holds especially true
when it comes to fashion.
And branding isn’t just about whom to attract; it’s also
about whom to repel.
Just
ask Mike “the Situation” (he was
asked to stop wearing A&F apparel on MTV’s The Jersey Shore out of fear
that the association worked against the A&F lifestyle).
So Abercrombie only wants
the cool kids...
Just walk by an A&F store. You’d have to be blind, deaf,
and dumb not to know it already.
Ear-pulsing club beats and dim lighting. Larger than life
posters of scantily clad, physically fit twenty-somethings. The choking aroma
of signature fragrance.
Shit’s intimidating! (Coming
from a former uncool kid)
And who’s cool? All else held equal, it’s the most
attractive kid with access to the most money (I.e., loaded parents).
Price has been an
effective (and acceptable) form of exclusion for years.
Businesses in every industry imaginable have used price as a
bar of access against less affluent consumers. No one ever takes offense.
But weight gets personal.
You just don’t talk about it. And for Abercrombie, maybe
it’s that it seems to only apply to girls, which provides an added sting of
chauvinism.
What we have here is a perfectly rational business choice
communicated in a callous, way too transparent manner – add too crowd sourcing
and voice amplification via social media.
What we have is a
case for better PR.
When it comes to the human body, we possess unfair,
illogical aspirations. It’s a reality made possible by years of an escalating
notion that sex sells in advertising and Photoshop.
Abercrombie built a name for itself around the chase of
physical perfection – and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a solid
business model.
Mike Jeffries just should have been more diplomatic in his
explanation.
And maybe we’d respect the brand’s stance more if it was
even a fraction the “cool” it was more than a decade ago.
Pt. 2 - A brand in
need of friends… (I promised we’d get back to the Marketing part)
When I was home in February, I walked out of A&F with a
pair of jeans for $9.00. Rewind 15 years and you’d see me out front of the same
store BEGGING my mom to buy me the last $48.00 tee left in my size.
At the turn of the Millennium you’d have been lucky to find
a 10% mark down at the end of the season. Now, it’s reductions on top of
redlines and cash rewards if you come back a week later.
Sales have slumped.
While the brand continues to expand internationally, kids
here at home have moved on. Why?
A&F wants the
cool kids, but the cool kids want something else.
They want to be new and now and cutting edge.
When it comes to
fashion, cool kids buy on trend and Abercrombie is not trend.
It’s a lifestyle.
New colors, cuts and prints. With kids, the faster they
change the better.
During its mid- to late-nineties heyday, A&F’s “lifestyle”
look felt like a trend because it was
fresh and new.
But year after year of the same blue-gray plaids and
spaghetti strap tanks, popped polo collars, tattered denim, and year-round flip flops, and kids stopped
paying attention.
A&F set out to be the next Ralph Lauren; an iconic look all its own. But with a primary target
of impatient, self-righteous teens, it was never going to work.
The notion (and cache) of timelessness is lost on the young.
Teens don’t want to look the same year after year and they
certainly don’t want to dress like their parents.
So never mind the controversy
over size and resulting consumer “boycotts” that, thanks to social media, are shared
with a false impression of a unified front.
Before long we’ll no doubt move on to hazing and rebuking a
different brand for whom we used to admire.
No, it’s the refusal
to evolve the A&F “lifestyle” that will sink this ship.
(Under the current
business model, I give it no more than 5 years).
