Cas Marketing Abercrombie PDF

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Case study of the marketing function of Abercrombie...

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Abercrombie & Fitch: for beautiful people only Even before I reach Abercrombie & Fitch's flagship London store, three separate groups of European teenagers stop me to ask where it is. This is destination shopping. I follow one group of girls in and they rush up to the topless man by the entrance to have their picture taken with him. He stands in front of a huge black-and-white photograph of two half-naked, muscled young men embracing. One of the mysteries of this brand is why so many straight teenage boys, not a group known for its tolerance of homosexuality, are not put off by the brand's overtly homoerotic imagery. Another is why anyone would pay £94 for a hoodie, or £50-plus for a polo shirt. The air is pumped with nausea-inducing fragrance, the music is nightclub-loud and it is so dark that I keep bumping into cabinets and stray tweens who have become separated from their parents. "You get used to it," says a ridiculously handsome sales assistant with a perfect smile. There is no room for negativity in the Abercrombie & Fitch universe. "It's a loathsome experience," says Andy Pike, 47, a risk analyst for a bank, who leaves with a present for his niece. "It's so contrived, it's overpriced. It was so dark I couldn't tell what colour something was." And the music is so loud! He nods. "That makes us sound really old doesn't it? I'm not the target customer." This store, on the street that adjoins Savile Row, London, opened in 2007, in an 18th-century Grade II listed building with blacked-out windows. They were not exactly welcomed by the neighbours. One of Savile Row's bespoke tailors told the Times: "If the bespoke businesses were driven out by crappy retail stores selling poor-quality clothes, Savile Row's name would be irreparably damaged." This week a protest was staged to stop it opening a second store – this time selling the Abercrombie childrenswear brand – on the Row itself. The company, which also owns the Hollister and Gilly Hicks lingerie brands, has been the subject of boycotts from feminist groups – for T-shirts that read "Who needs a brain when you have these?" splashed across the chest – and has outraged people for selling thongs for children with "wink wink" printed on the front, and last year for selling "push-up" (its description) bikini tops for girls as young as seven. Its advertising campaigns, shot by fashion photographer Bruce Weber, are regularly criticised by decency campaigners in America for being far too suggestive. The company seems to almost delight in winding up activists and the religious right. From a public relations perspective, these allegations should be damaging – and numerous commentators and bloggers are routinely critical of A&F – but the company appears to survive them (it also made headlines last year for offering to pay stars of a reality show not to wear its clothes). But surely these kind of allegations are as bad as they come? "I am fascinated by this," says Mark Borkowski, a PR expert. "They've got a weird arrogance. In textbook terms, it should hinder them, but in a bizarre way it's helped them. They ride the storms and manage not to focus on any key figure – I don't recognise any spokesperson who regularly turns up, the focus is on the brand. They've got a very keen identity of who they are, what they want, who they want to consume their products, and they've stuck to it." Today's Abercrombie & Fitch would be unrecognisable to its founders. David T Abercrombie opened Abercrombie Co in Manhattan in 1892 as a gentleman's outfitters and outdoorsmen's

shop; one of his customers, wealthy lawyer Edzard Fitch, bought into the company and it was relaunched as Abercrombie & Fitch in 1904. It dressed Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earheart and Katharine Hepburn, sold guns to Ernest Hemingway and blazers to JFK. In 1976, it went bankrupt, and was revived by another company in 1978, who then sold it to The Limited, an apparel firm. It brought in Mike Jeffries, who has transformed it from a company losing $25m a year to one worth $4bn today. It was Jeffries who emphasised youth and sex, creating an idealised image of clean-cut, fratboy hunks, and a conventional, cheerleader-type look for girls, a Gatsby-style, affluent, youthful clique, updated in brightly coloured sweatshirts and logo'd T-shirts. Jeffries brought in Weber, known for his own idolisation of athletic, semi-naked men, to create the brand's imagery, and introduced the store's "look policy" – shopfloor staff are called "models", not sales assistants, and only beautiful people are hired (more average types are relegated to stacking shelves). They are often aspiring models, dancers or actors who work part-time. Potential employees are scouted in the street and in stores, and a chosen few are selected to be photographed by Weber for advertising material. "In this country its appeal is limited to teenagers and cliquey students," says fashion writer and Grazia contributing editor Melanie Rickey. "People who are interested in fashion don't wear Abercrombie, at least not in public. If I were 16, I would make my pilgrimage down to the shop. It's a rite of passage for all teenagers." It "is one of the best examples of a brand that is incredibly focused and disciplined about its retail execution," says Karl McKeever, brand director of retail marketing consultancy Visual Thinking. "It's very targeted, precisely executed, nothing is left to chance. It is multi-sensory." The stores are pumped full of its fragrance, "an idea many brands don't pursue. Music plays an incredibly important part. They create this intense, nightclub sound. It's very high-energy music, with high beats per minute, and one track is mixed into another so there is this continuous high-energy environment which helps to elevate the heart rate, keeps the audience in a heightened state of emotion. This translates into participation – ie they are buying more." The darkened stores mean lighting is focused on the products, "illuminated so highly and brightly, they're like sweets in a sweetshop. And the products are very lavishly displayed – the tables are full, it's abundant. It's very attractive and polished, it's giving this ideal, perfectionist view of the world as told by Abercrombie & Fitch." It's an aspiration that is easily sold, he says, because the target market is "a highly impressionable younger audience." Its stock price once exceeded $80, but is now worth around half that and Jeffries, whose contract ends in 2014, has been seen to have made mistakes. In 2004, he launched a higherpriced brand, Ruehl, which closed in 2009. A&F over-expanded, and the company closed 135 stores between 2010 and 2011, and it is predicted many more will close by 2015. He has also been criticised for not reducing prices during the recession. "The shares had a bit of a wobble last year, because having opened stores in Europe in flagship locations, those stores have a strong opening and then sometimes they go backwards," says a former retail sector analyst. More than half of Abercrombie's revenue now comes from its cheaper Hollister brand stores, which are "being rolled out more rapidly than Abercrombie & Fitch itself. The strategy seems to be A&F in the flagship location; Hollister works in the malls. Hollister is pitched slightly cheaper and in the UK market, when you look at Abercrombie's prices, they have basically done pound-for-dollar so it is more expensive in

the UK than in its home market. The other brand they are just starting to push is Gilly Hicks." Next month, flagship Hollister and Gilly Hicks stores are opening in London. It is a mixed picture. Outside the London store, I stop two young women who are unimpressed. "It used to be exclusive, but not any more," says Audrey Vanderstraetten, a marketing student from Belgium. "It's too expensive," says her friend. Then there are the two other teenage girls who skip out of the store, shrieking and giggling, clearly thrilled by their Abercrombie & Fitch experience. They are each clutching a photo of themselves with the topless A&F model, but, I notice, no carrier bag.

Sensory Marketing – Abercrombie and Fitch Sensory Marketing by Abercrombie & Fitch This sensory marketing aims at inciting the customers to come to cross(spend) a pleasant moment while encouraging them to buy but also and especially to return. The sight. The filtered light emphasizes the clothes which thanks to their colors warm the store. Then there are also the salesmen with perfect physical appearances! They are all models. The men are especially tanned with developed muscle and the women have a natural beauty. The brand encourages the quest of beauty and let it know. The employees all adopt fashionable student look The hearing, By the ambient, very modern and young music : electro music. It gives to every shop an “nightclub” aspect very trendy for this new target. The smell One of the most important aspects because it is the one which remains in us in head once taken out of Abercrombie and Fitch. The salesmen have to vaporize the clothes of the Abercrombie perfume : the fierce the tactile side is very advanced. In the store its possible to get, unfold, and try clothes as long as you want, you don’t need to ask for a salesman. This aspect is very important because he allows to judge the quality of the product. A little of eroticism comes then to the end of the route(course). Yes because it is possible to take a photo with one of the torses models nude to remember. What will allow the consumers not to forget this shop and of their to give the envy(urge) to return. Conclusion The brand does not only content with proposing the sale of T-shirts and polos. She invites the consumer to live an original experience in an outstanding atmosphere.

Questions : -

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What are the characteristics of Abercrombie’s marketing strategy ? Regarding the sales strategy of the firm, Abercrombie’s products are developed in order to promote one specific type of feature. Which one according to you ? Explain. Is Abercrombie & Fitch actually developing a segmentation strategy ? If it is the case, what is the segment they are mostly focusing on ? Is selling expensive products a bad option/choice for the Abercrombie company ? Explain.

Answers : -

They've got a very keen identity of who they are, what they want, who they want to consume their products, and they've stuck to it." Abercrombie’s company invites the costumers to spend a pleasant time in their stores in which they play a modern and young music, while encouraging them to buy but also and specially to return.

(they focus on the appearance of their employees which could be provocative. They are targeting teenagers, they try to promote to their costumer a specific image “the fact of wearing their cloths will make them feel handsome/beautiful and confident …etc” they promote the nice image and the exclusivity, which mean that not everybody can have access to their products (hard to get) they give their consumers the idea of being unique, for example in France there is only the store) - Symbolic features, because they work on their image (the look and atmosphere “light lights and modern music” of their stores and their sell assistants “models, good looking, always smiling”) - Concentrated segmentation strategy - It could be a bad choice because of the competition with other brands, but at the same time it could be a good choice since the brand is trying to sell something exclusive to their consumers that will give them a specific image reflecting uniqueness and good looking, also their stores have a specific atmosphere (= they don’t sell only the products but a whole experience)...