A&F tells models to keep their shirts on
Abercrombie & Fitch, which under former CEO Michael Jeffries built its business with sexually suggestive advertising, has decided that its future messaging will rely on displaying the chain’s fashions and not the bodies they cover.
"We have moved away from sexualized marketing," Mackenzie Bruce, a spokesperson for A&F, told Adweek. "Today, our marketing has undergone a significant evolution. We are using mostly color images and are focused on showcasing product and trends."
The changes being made at A&F are not just of the cosmetic variety. The company, which faced a number of suits under Mr. Jeffries for discriminatory hiring practices, has a new hiring policy in place.
The Associated Press reported on an internal letter sent last week to regional and district managers at the chain. "Abercrombie & Fitch will recruit and hire the best associates whose focus will be on offering our customers an excellent in-store experience. We will not tolerate discrimination based on body type or physical attractiveness and will not tolerate discrimination in hiring based on any category protected under the law."
A&F reported a sales decrease of 14 percent in its fourth quarter with comp sales in the U.S. down 10 percent for the period.
Source: abercrombie.com
- Abercrombie & Fitch Reports Fourth Quarter Results – Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
- Shirts on, Boys. – Adweek
- Abercrombie & Fitch tones down the sexy in stores, ads – The Associated Press/The Boston Globe (tiered sub.)
- Abercrombie & Fitch says it will stop hiring workers based on ‘body type or physical attractiveness’ – The Washington Post (tiered sub.)
- Abercrombie & Fitch to Ditch Sleazy Hot Clerk Policy and Trademark Sexy Abs – Entrepreneur
- The Abercrombie & Fitch Makeover: A Review – The New York Times (tiered sub.)
- Supreme Court Looks At Abercrombie & Fitch’s Hijab Discrimination Case – NPR
Discussion Questions
Will the planned changes in Abercrombie & Fitch’s advertising and hiring practices be enough to put the chain on a positive sales track?
Poll
BrainTrust
Dick Seesel
Principal, Retailing In Focus LLC
Phil Rubin
Founder, Grey Space Matters
I doubt it. At one time Abercrombie & Fitch clothes had a definite cachet with their target customers. I don’t believe that is still true or at least true to the same extent. New competitors have entered the market and many of Abercrombie & Fitch’s former customers have moved on.
It’s hard to have a crystal ball about the future of Abercrombie & Fitch, but clearly the company needed a sharp change in direction in order to recapture lost market share. The over-the-top edginess of the ads and the hiring practices both outlasted their usefulness as brand positioning tools, and more importantly the Abercrombie & Fitch product development model (making big bets on trends and using long-lead time sourcing) lost significant ground to Forever 21 and other “fast fashion” competitors.
Yes the new marketing and hiring will help Abercrombie & Fitch, but it really comes down to the relevance of the merchandise content.
Abercrombie & Fitch lost relevance years ago and, given the challenges in the category, it’s hard to see it recovering anytime soon. Especially as a retailer, you don’t win by alienating customers, certainly not over the long-term. For Abercrombie & Fitch, this is the long-term and they have probably lost.
As much as I didn’t like the past campaigns, I wasn’t the target market. The new images look like every other teen retailer’s look. Ho Hum … Not going to make a ripple of difference in sales.
Abercrombie & Fitch is running to catch up.
Their clothing is not relevant anymore, and you can get on-trend fashion at other clothiers like H&M at better prices. They rode that horse as far as they could and now they will have to find a way to make the fashions speak for themselves instead of having pretty people model them. Good luck to them.
It does not matter how you hire if your merchandise does not have a place in the consumer’s list of products to desire. Abercrombie & Fitch needs to research their targets given the current competitive marketplace and the fact that the latest generation of teen shoppers does not view them as the latest thing. Better targeting, relevant merchandise and good ads may turn Abercrombie & Fitch around but once a “trendy” retailer starts down the slope it is difficult to recover.
Interesting. I stopped shopping there over fifteen years ago back when I was actually in the target demographic because a friend who worked there (good-looking, of course) was actually told to ignore shoppers who were not good-looking. This of course appalled me so I began a personal boycott. The new Abercrombie & Fitch focus may be “on offering our customers an excellent in-store experience,” but if those turned off by the sexually suggestive in-store advertising of the past don’t actually step foot in the store again, they will never realize Abercrombie & Fitch has changed. And like me, even if they realize it they are probably “too old” to shop there again anyway.
So I don’t think these changes will necessarily bring former shoppers back, but these new practices will ensure that Abercrombie & Fitch is casting a wider net with the younger demographic that is currently coming of age and in their prime clothes-shopping years.
Perhaps this will put them on a positive sales track, perhaps not. Are they counting on leveraging their name alone or will they reinvent their brand in other ways as well? Because I agree with Jerry G., the new images aren’t anything to write home about. What’s their differentiator now — “We no longer discriminate against average-looking people. P.S., look at our cute summer line-up.”? That’s not enough. It will be interesting to watch this unfold throughout 2015.
It says something—not good, by the way—that we’re even having a discussion about whether/not “showcasing product and trends” and “offering … an excellent in-store experience” is a good strategy. Of course the “not good” part is because we’re not really sure if ANF can handle it or not; and even if they can, as commenters here have noted, that will merely make them like pretty much every other teen retailer.
This is the beginning of the American Eagle-ization of A&F to me. What will the difference be between the two brands, or even the Gap for that matter, when you take all of the uniqueness out of A&F? It’s a whitewashing of one of the most interesting brands ever created in the US apparel business.
Whether you liked the things A&F did or whether or not they made “business sense” is irrelevant. They made Abercrombie different. And that is job #1 for any marketer anywhere. Differentiation: the golden goose. And they had it in spades. So, now what? What’s the plan? I haven’t heard one.
Where A&F fell down to me was on the product side. Obviously, if their goods were still selling, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
It may be a step in the right direction but it may also hurt them. Consumer’s logical brain wants to be politically correct, but their emotional brain, the one that often makes decisions doesn’t care. Sex appeal still has to be there for the masses but they need to do it tastefully.
No. Sexually suggestive presentation sells, and stopping all of this will hurt. It doesn’t have to be discriminatory, but it can show off youth, health, etc. A&F should recognize this and position itself accordingly…that is what its market wants….