A recent
article on an American site Business Insider mused on the fact that the
clothing label Abercrombie &
Fitch does not stock clothing larger than a “Large” size for women. In the
article the author referenced another interview with the CEO of Abercrombie,
Mike Jeffries, from way back in 2006 in Salon Magazine. Here Jeffries states
the following:
“In every
school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool
kids,” he says. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the
attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot
of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we
exclusionary? Absolutely."
Despite the
fact that these comments were made 7 years ago, they have spawned a new anti
A&F campaign under the twitter hashtag #FitchTheHomeless. The campaign was
started by an LA based film maker and writer Greg Karber who reacted to the
article by videoing himself going to a local Goodwill store, buying Abercrombie
and Fitch donated clothes and then donating them to homeless people in LA and
encouraging others to do the same to break the brand positioning. His video on
YouTube has now had over 5.7m views. But is this a PR disaster or actually just
very careful and well thought out brand management personified by the CEO?
Most of the
media commentary about this centres on how terrible it is that A&F do not
cater for larger sized women and that makes them exclusionist. Many have also
turned on its policy of only hiring
good-looking employees and its habit of having bare torso male models welcoming
customers into its darkened, music blaring outlets.
You might
be thinking this is nothing new and just one in a long line of CEO PR gaffs.
Gerald Ratner famously wiped £500 million from the value of Ratners jewellers
with one speech in 1991 with the line “People say, 'How can you sell this for
such a low price?' I say, because it's total crap." Or Alain Levy,
chief executive of the music company EMI, who after cutting the roster of
artists on a music label they owned in Finland said it was because there were
not that many people in the country "who could sing".
They were
both classic examples of PR nightmares but in my opinion the comments from Mike
Jeffries is actually a good example of excellent brand management. True brand
management is about totally understanding both your product and your target
audience. It’s about creating a passion in that audience and making them feel
so part of your product that they become brand ambassadors.
For some
products that mean’s that you might have to upset people outside of your chosen
target, but if that’s what you have to do then that’s what you have to do.
Abercrombie targets young, pretty, slim people and like it or not young, pretty
and slim people do not want to be seen wearing the same clothes as old, ugly
and fat people. You might not agree with their positioning but it’s what drives
a multi-million dollar clothing empire. They successfully sell to their target
market and those who want to be in it and statements such as those from
Jeffries only reinforce that ability.
Tim
Youngman is Director of Marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman
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