In the following I explore how myth has been used to position Abercrombie and Fitch clothing in the market.
Abercrombie & Fitch is a popular teen brand. It uses the same brand experience in every store across the western world. Each store, no matter where has the same style, the same sound and the same smell. The myth about the lean, white, and rich ideal coming from the American society is distributed in the same way in every country. Hence, I am not only focusing on the myth that has been used to position the brand in Germany, but how myth has been used to position A&F in every market they sell their products in.
A&F has a clearly defined target customer: the good-looking, classic and cool teenagers. The image they produce with the brand
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Abercrombie & Fitch tries to appeal to a certain group of people for their products. The people in their advertisements present the type of person they want to buy and wear their clothing, and what they want their customers to try to look like. Playing on this stereotype, A&F create a cliché of what they think their customers want to look like. This kind of myth has an extreme influence on the way the consumers view society and themselves.
Transporting the message of “if you’re male and you buy Abercrombie and Fitch jeans, they’ll make you look like this” or “if you’re female and you shop at Abercrombie and Fitch, you’ll get men who look like this” spreads the myth of the attractive American type: tall, tan and physically fit. Deducing from there, A&F is not only selling a brand, but a complete lifestyle. A&F trades on the fact that objectified forms of cultural capital in the façade of clothes and accessories from ‘cool’ brands (such as Abercrombie & Fitch) are “significant for the reproduction of teens’ position” (Chittenden 2010, p.
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Beside the shirtless men at the entrance of every store, the faded black/white images of almost naked teens developed to a trademark for Abercrombie and Fitch. Although the text is nearly blocked and covered, consumers would undoubtedly be able to identify this image as one of A&Fs.
Even though it is difficult to see a relationship among the images, there is a clear relationship between the product and sexuality.
Abercrombie is a clothing brand and in its adverts and their brand communication the models are essentially naked but trying to sell clothes. However, A&F sells much more than clothes, it is trying to sell its image and a lifestyle. Using their brand communication they want a sexual image to be connected with their name.
A&Fs in-store experience is the crucial way of advertising for the company. Through the store layout and decoration A&F capitalized on their target market’s value of exclusivity and youthful spirit. Personifying the lifestyle of the company and reinforcing it through action and dress is the core driver of the in-store experience. Salespersons were employed based on their ability to embody the brand. Their selling ability is
Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the leading clothing companies in the world. They manufacture
First research objective was to determine whether it is profitable for J.Crew to shift their brand focus to a ‘sustainablity’ business model instead of resuming their position in the fast fashion industry.
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F), an American retailer that concentrates on upscale casual wear for young consumers, which was founded in Manhattan, New York City in June 4, 1892 by two young minds of David T. Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch. Beginning with a rough journey of selling sporting outfits and excursion goods such as fishing and hunting equipment, A&F had to file bankruptcy in 1977. Soon thereafter, the company was revived after Jake Oshman, owner of Oshman Sporting Goods, bought A&F in 1978. A&F was relaunched as a mail-retailer company specializing in hunting wear and novelty items, but was bought by The Limited ten years after its revival. The gradual shift to focusing on apparels for young consumers began when A&F was a subsidiary of Limited Brands, and since then, A&F has grown to become one of the largest apparel firms in the United States. In 1998, A&F launched Abercrombie Kids, targeting consumers from age 7-14, which further increases its revenue. In 1999 to early 2000s, A&F’s sales skyrocketed as it hit its zenith, by portraying A&F clothing as the “coolest thing” through billboard-winning song that compliments A&F in the lyrics, as well as other advertisements. Furthermore, A&F launched a subsidiary called Hollister to tackle similar age group of target audience but with lower income. This expansion to dominate the market of teenagers through consideration of other demographic factor, namely income, was exceptional for A&F’s revenue. Presently, A&F focused on
The company Abercrombie and Fitch has been sued countless times because of the rules the government has imposed on hiring and firing people. Abercrombie is trying to target attractive looking people to their line of cloths. During an interview Salon Jeffries the CEO of Abercrombie stated… his business was built around sex appeal… “He believes that good-looking people attract other good-looking people”… If a clothing line
Teenagers all across the country contain a fascination in determining who they are especially when shown through fashion. This passion to show who one is, is not racist or ableist, it's just an emotion that many teenagers face while learning who they are. From this passion they style their ideas and clothing choices off the magazines and stores they constantly see. From back to school sales to black friday shopping, advertisements that are posted influence what teenagers spend their money on. One of the most prominent teenager stores would be American Eagle. American Eagle might be a worldwide organization, having clothes on teenagers in every corner of the globe, yet its representation
Behavioral: Benefits - Show-off, being popular, being sexier Attitude toward product - Positive, sexual attractive, American lifestyle Not many companies use mass marketing these days. Instead, they practice target marketing by identifying market segments, selecting one or more of them, and developing products and marketing mixes tailored for each. A&F is a successful brand that targets the A&F, Analysis Report young generation market precisely. Based on our survey, A&F has achieved phenomenal success by portraying a brand image that comprises a series of very attractive imagery. Teenagers see a lot of this imagery through advertisements; however, what influences them most is their peers (Goodman & Dretzin, 1999).
It’s clear that Abercrombie and Fitch is a top named store across the world so it’s fairly easy for one to go and shop there. Its important to look at this institution with feminist and intersectional eyes because it’s important to boycott stores and places who treat individuals like this just because they aren’t the ideal race and sex. In order to stop companies from just agreeing to a settlement to make their problems go away, as a society we need to not support their behavior of diminishing
A considerable problem in today society is discrimination. Whether it’s based upon race, age, sexuality, or even looks, discrimination is a serious dilemma. Marshal Cohen, a senior industry analyst with the NPD Group, believes that hiring people who are “walking billboards” is critical and essential to a company’s success. The companies who hire based on looks, fail to realize that there are shoppers who do not care about the appearance of the store employees, just as long as they are receiving good customer service. People cannot completely control their appearance and brands like Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, and American Apparel should take notice to that.
Of the hundreds of named brand clothing that form part of the retail and fashion industry I chose to compare, for my analysis, Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, American Eagle, and H&M. These stores are prominent, well-known for selling apparel, shoes, and accessories by the means of offering sales and promotions to their customers. This is a clever strategy for attracting customers, allowing them to believe that they bought goods at affordable, convenient prices – and not to mention the prestigious name prescribed to the clothing brands. Using keyhole.co as my main source, I obtained relevant and valuable information regarding the status of these brands. My intentions were to compare a period of 14 days, however, due to the limited access that I received from my free trial, the program only allowed me to see fewer of the dates than I anticipated. I want to take this opportunity and mention ahead of time that due to the various and distinctive products that are sold from these stores, when looking for the “spending capacity” I decided to focus on shirts/ jeans for men and women and compare the prices among them since each of these retailers carry those items and as a way to make this report easier to contrast and comprehend. Also, when approaching the section of “setting”, I screen-shotted some of the images on Instagram and made them into a collage to separate the type of clothes and trends that each of these brands sell currently. In the following modules
Then next week I was reading the Star Tribune newspaper when I came across and editorial written about Abercrombie and Fitch. The author was disgusted with the store because of its blatant promotion of college-age drinking. The issue came up in one of A&F's quarterly "magazines". Instead of sending out free catalogs of their merchandise to customers, A&F sells a retail "magazine" which they distribute four times a year for the small fee of five dollars per issue. The magazine is filled with pictures similar to the life-size ones which cover the store walls -- tan, beautiful and
For generations, Americans has been brainwashed by the media to believe that what is displayed on television is the ideal perception of what real beauty have manipulated American citizens of what style looks like. Furthermore, with their many brainwashing strategies, that means more and more consumers spending beyond their budget. Our perspectives have been heavily influenced by what they believe is nice, but can we afford it all? With unrealistic combination of goods in store, plazas, and mall, consuming has become a bad behavior of some. In support of my argument of the “Overspending”, author Gladwell’s article “The Science of Shopping” also argues that stores adjust to fit the needs and wants of the shopper are evidently presented. With that being said, we have no idea when we are being manipulated into unrealistic shopping behavior that is influenced by the way the advertisement is presented in visual sight. Author Gladwell gets a “retail anthropologist” and “urban geographer” named Paco Underhill to give breakdown points of how he helps brand name stores influence consumers into persuasion of buying more. However, most of us fall short of that discipline, while being persuaded to overspend during our store visits.
Abercrombie and Fitch has become a household name and you can find one of their three division stores in your local mall and or shopping center. The stores under Abercrombie and Fitch are Hollister and Gilly Hicks Brand. I have conducted an analysis that illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of Abercrombie and Fitch. This company strives off of their strengths, which included customers having great accessibility each of their divisions. They have a higher profit after they were able to close some of their stores to focus on their stores that high profitability and revamping those. Abercrombie and Fitch were able to get high brand names such as Ralph Lauren to help bring a fresh new style into the store that in turn doubled the net income
Despite Abercrombie & Fitch’s efforts to win back loyal consumers with their new rebranding initiative, the company continues to experience a decline in annual revenue and dismal growth coupled with a poor return on investment, making it a risky investment option for potential shareholders. According to the company’s annual report, Abercrombie & Fitch saw a decline in revenue from $4,116.90 billion in February 2014 to $3,744.03 billion in 2015 with fourth-quarter revenues falling nearly 14% to $1.12 billion (Abercrombie & Fitch 41). The company contributed its dismal report to a decrease in the number of operational stores at the end of Q4 fiscal 2014, weak consumer demand for both Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch, slowing growth in
As images like this began to appear, they shocked the public, especially children who were previously unexposed to such graphics. But, despite the shock factor and the apparent irony that exists in a clothing store whose ads feature models who aren’t wearing clothes, these ads work. Now these bags and other such ads are everywhere, both reflecting the crafty idea to turn customers into walking billboards, as well as representing the number of people who respond to these advertisements.
Abercrombie & Fitch’s corporate leaders have designed policies to mandate personal appearance, manifesting into a