A&f Case Study

The highly competitive fashion business demands that companies be extremely inventive in their promotion strategies. Mass-market brands targeted to youth audiences sometimes choose provocative and controversial ways of brand promotion. Calvin Klein, FCUK, Benetton, Diesel - all these brands are famous for their controversial and provocative advertising.

Established in 1892, Abercrombie & Fitch started as an upscale brand of sports outfit. Its clients' list included Theodore Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway. After passing through a serious crisis in the '80s and a bankruptcy, it was bought by The Limited, Inc., the company that owns Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works and La Senza, etc. When Mike Jeffries, an ambitious manager, came in as chief executive in 1992, the company had 20 U.S. stores, a handful of outlets in Canada and was losing $25-million a year selling classic, "frumpy" preppy styles. Jeffries proposed an unexpected plan of brand restoration and Abercrombie turned to "casual luxury" for college students. The promotion strategy targeted college students 18-22 years old and primarily used provocative sexual content and images. This strategy led to quick and successful promotion among the target audience. Abercrombie was rated as the second coolest brand after Nike. The photos from the A&F Quarterly catalog were the No.1 choice for wall decoration in college dorms. The sales grew rapidly. At the same time, American society actively reacted against Abercrombie, organizing numerous boycotts and protests. This resulted in sales decrease and lots of negative publications in the U.S. mass media.

After almost 10 years of provocation and discriminatory issues, in 2006 Abercrombie turned to less controversial strategy and, as one of the most successful mass market brands in the U.S., began to expand into the international market. During the 10 years of the company's renovation, the share price increased from $16 to $80 . This case study is aimed at analyzing the crises caused by Abercrombie's provocative promotion strategy and their consequences.

2 Fashion advertising in '90s

Abercrombie & Fitch was not the first company that used provocative concepts in its advertising. The period of the '90s was famous for several advertising campaigns of youth brands that shocked the public and promoted controversial ideas.

In the '90s, Oliviero Toscani - a creative director for Benetton - created a series of advertising campaigns featuring such images as a priest kissing a nun, newborn baby with its umbilical cord unsevered, a man dying of AIDS and a bloody uniform of a Bosnian soldier.

In 1993, Calvin Klein launched the famous campaign featuring Kate Moss. This campaign promoted the heroin chic - a look characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes, and jutting bones. The trend continued in 1995, when Klein started the promotion, which used images of models who were reportedly as young as 15, and was meant to mimic "picture set" pornography of the '60s.

In April 1997, French Connection clothing brand began branding their clothes "fcuk". They fully exploited this and produced an extremely popular range of t-shirts with messages such as "fcuk this", "hot as fcuk", "mile high fcuk", "lucky fcuk", "Fun Comes Usually Kneeling", "fcuk on the beach", etc. As a result of this campaign, the company reported a 27% jump in profits in 1998.

In 1991, Diesel - an Italian brand - launched its new campaign with the slogan "For successful living", which featured everything from homosexual sailors to Africa as an international superpower. Unlike French Connection and Benetton, Diesel received little negative feedback. The campaign won numerous prizes at Cannes Lions Festival, Epica and Eurobest. The company also received the Premio Risultat award in 1996 from the Bocconi Institute in Milan, for "Best Italian Company of the Year".

3 History

The label "Abercrombie & Fitch" dates back to 1892, when David T. Abercrombie opened David T. Abercrombie & Co., a small shop and factory in downtown Manhattan. He dedicated himself to producing high-end gear for hunters, fishermen, campers and explorers. In 1900, Ezra Fitch - one of the company's early clients - approached Abercrombie about entering into a business partnership. By 1904 the shop was relocated to 314 Broadway and was incorporated under the name "Abercrombie & Fitch".

Due to constant disagreement regarding business strategy, Abercrombie resigned and Fitch continued managing by himself. By 1913 the company became the first store in New York to supply clothing to both women and men. Abercrombie & Fitch became an outfitter of the rich, famous and powerful. They outfitted Theodore Roosevelt's trips to Africa and the Amazon as well as Robert Peary's famous trip to the North Pole. Other famous A&F clientele included presidents William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy, Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway.

In 1928 Fitch retired from the business. The company continued to grow and expanded well into the 1960s. In the late 1960s Abercrombie started to experience financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy in 1977. In 1988 the company was bought by the Limited, Inc., which tried to position the brand as a men's clothing line and later added a women's line . These efforts failed and the real Abercrombie makeover began under the hand of Michael Jeffries, the current CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, in 1992. Jeffries hired his own team of designers and invited famous photographer Bruce Weber to do the advertising campaigns.

Only two years after Jeffries reorganized the brand, Abercrombie reported its first financial success since the 1960s. The company went public in 1996 with the share price of $16 and in 1998 it spun off from the Limited and became an independent, publicly traded company. In 1998 the company started expanding its business to different age groups. In July 1998 it opened the first six stores of Abercrombie - the brand that is targeted to 7-14 year olds. In July 2000 the first Hollister store was opened, offering clothes for teenagers 14-17 years old. RUEHL No925 - Abercrombie's brand targeted to the age group of 22 through 35 years old - was opened in September 2004.

4 A&F Quarterly

4.1 The Launch

The first issue of the A&F Quarterly catalog appeared