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Abercrombie & Fitch Marketing Strategy Draws Protests

Aired December 10, 2003 - 15:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you know the saying, sex sells. Clothing marketer Abercrombie & Fitch seem to know that pretty well. But its quarterly catalog, really, they call it a magalog, whatever that is. It features naked models and threesomes, a little bit hot-to-handle discussions about all sorts of sexual activities.
Family groups launched protests. And now Abercrombie & Fitch says, you know, we're going to sell perfume in the same spot anyway. The company has a storied history. It began selling camping gear in 1892. It once catered to President Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh. And, as recently as 1960, if you went to the store, you would have found fishing lures and shotguns for sale and everybody fully clothed.

Now it's all about selling hip threads to teens and preteens, spending a lot of money for stuff that looked ripped and ugly. Well, that's my own personal opinion. But what's all this fuss about? And, perhaps, is it playing into the company's hands?

Let's talk about it with marketing strategist Laura Ries right here in Atlanta, and P.R. company founder Robbie Vorhaus in New York.

Good to have you both with us.

ROBBIE VORHAUS, VORHAUS PUBLIC RELATIONS: How are you?

O'BRIEN: I'm well.

First of all, what -- Robbie, we'll begin with you -- what, pray tell, is a magalog?

VORHAUS: Well, what a magalog is, is a bunch of people sitting around saying, boy, catalog are very expensive to produce. L.L. Bean and a lot of other catalog people know that. And they were thinking, well, wouldn't it be great if we came up with an idea that actually got people to pay for our catalog. How are we going to do that? Sex sells. Let's try that.

O'BRIEN: Ah.

And so, basically, Laura, Abercrombie sort of defined this whole genre. Pretty slick move there. It's kind of a clever way to get the merchandise in front of people's faces.

LAURA RIES, BRANDING ANALYST: Oh, absolutely. It was a fabulous idea. But, remember, this was done back in 1997. And, at the time, it was brand new. It was exciting. They were giving away these racy catalogs, or selling them, giving them away to some of their customers, the credit card customers in particular. But fabulous idea. It was cutting edge. It was racy.

The problem is, is having to outdo yourself year after year. To get the covers, to get the kids interested and excited and titillated, you're going to have to do something more and more outrageous. And I think, after six years, they finally crossed the line. I was blushing just looking at those pictures. Where are the clothes? What's going on? It's definitely a problem. They have reached a line. They've offended customers.

O'BRIEN: All right, but, Robbie, I suppose the fact that we are talking about this very subject right now might be interpreted as, what's the old saying, as long as they spell the name right, it's good publicity, right?

VORHAUS: Well, that's the old model.

What is this about? I always thought that, to sell clothes, you should show the clothes.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Or not the lack of.

VORHAUS: Or the lack -- exactly.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: And the other thing that's interesting about this is that it's -- a great brand that's using sex is Victoria Secret.

And this is actually a good thing for Abercrombie & Fitch, because they have a choice now to go back. It not what happens to you. It's what you do with happens to you. So they can say, look, we're sexualizing teens. We're getting feedback on that. We don't stand for anything. Our same-store sales are down. Let's go back and be a great American brand, like we've always been known for prior to this time.

And they've got a great chance to -- what does youth stand for? Hope. Aspiration. Potentiality. Goodness, what are we telling our kids by looking at this? We're saying, if you look at their catalog, if you look at some of the issues that they're having with hiring only the whites -- if you look at the catalog, it's predominantly white. And we're saying, this is a great chance for parents to say, look, you know what? Look at this catalog. This is saying that, unless you're white, unless you've got a hard body, unless you really love sex when you're at this age, you're not going to have any fun.

That's a lie.

(CROSSTALK) O'BRIEN: That is a bad message. I don't like that as a parent. What do you think?

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: Yes, well, wait a minute, but they've been saying this same message from 1997, getting the same outraged consumer groups going after them. Why, suddenly after six years, have they decided to finally throw in the towel? Well, I think they're having trouble.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: Because it's all about money. It's about money. It's about money.

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: Their brand is losing it.

VORHAUS: That's right. Exactly.

RIES: They've been around for 10 years and no longer are they cool.

VORHAUS: Exactly.

RIES: So what are they going to do? They're double-digit sales. They're a public company. And investors, when you get a lot of bad P.R., but your sales are going up, they think it's terrific.

You get this kind of P.R. and consumer hounding you, sales at the store are down, the management now is under increasing pressure. And I think finally buckled in. The catalog was way over the top. And they pulled it. And now they've got to decide, what are they going to do with this great brand?

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Maybe it was

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... bottom. I don't know which.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: Miles, there you go again. Always, it's fun.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: I want to get an e-mail in here. Then you can go, Robbie, All right.

Craig in Orlando has this for us: "I think their catalog was an original, artistic approach to selling clothing" -- although we didn't see much clothing. But, anyway. "While it was risque, it was done both sensually and tastefully. It's too bad they're no longer doing it."

And I'm going to add as a footnote to this, Robbie, as I send it over to you, is, this wasn't sent out in a blanket way to kids. This was something that was sold, they say, to people with proper I.D. and the right age in the store.

VORHAUS: Oh, come on. They can say whatever they want to say.

This is about money. This is about the old business model of, let's see how we can manipulate kids to believe that they're not OK just the way they are, but this is the way that you should be. You should be not feeling good about yourself. You should be looking at these white kids who are having sex. They're the ones who are having fun.

And it's baloney. It's not the way that the world is. We have got to step back. Consider this, Miles. Consider a brand that says, we want to reach youth. We want to be the No. 1 youth brand, and we're going to teach kids what they can be, the values that they can express, the potentiality that they can do.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Yes, but don't you think that would be a dud, Robbie? I wonder, knowing kids as you do, they want to rebel against their parents and they don't want to necessarily be up with people or whatever.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: Well, then let's not sexualize our children.

O'BRIEN: I'm with you on that.

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: Oh, it's a problem, I think, with all fashion brands, because they all take this approach to use sex. Sex sells.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: What about Calvin Klein, right?

RIES: Calvin Klein. Remember the kiddie porn ads? And they started with Brooke Shields. That was a big hoopla in that day. Nothing comes between me and my Calvins. And that ad was eventually pulled. But all fashion brands have done this. And it's a problem, absolutely, for society.

VORHAUS: And let me ask you, where are they today? Where are they today?

RIES: Well, after about 10 years, you just can't sustain coolness.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: No matter what.

Let's get Jean in Santa Barbara. Then I want to ask how a brand can stay cool in its own way. Jean says this: "What businesses like Abercrombie & Fitch are doing in the minds of young people is truly sickening. Most of my friends are liberal and not at all prudish, but we all seem to be in agreement on this issue." Put her in the Laura camp on this one, actually, in both of your camps.

And then let's do the final one, too, Mike, if we could.

RIES: Jean's a mom, by the way, I'm sure.

O'BRIEN: Undoubtedly.

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: She's not the customer.

VORHAUS: Right. The guy who wrote that before was 21 years old.

O'BRIEN: Well, yes. Jean's in Santa Barbara, but she hasn't been to Neverland. We can say that for sure.

All right, "The catalog was sent to subscribers," says the next e-mail. "Thusly, nonsubscribers have nothing to complain about. If Abercrombie & Fitch were making real money, this would not have discontinued the campaign."

Now, that's the point there that I think you're making, Robert, right?

VORHAUS: That's right.

If you look at, what are they trying to do, they're trying to use an old tool, exactly as Laura has talked about here, exactly as she and her father have written in her book. It's an old tool that's trying to shock. It's not to raise. It's to lower. It's trying to get people to think that they're not good enough just the way they are. And it won't work.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Is that true? It won't work anymore?

RIES: It won't work. Shocking won't work year after year after year.

Think about Madonna. You finally run out of shocking things to do. And people yawn. They just don't think she's cutting edge anymore. She can kiss Britney all she wants.

(CROSSTALK) VORHAUS: She won't let her kids watch TV.

RIES: Yes. Oh, absolutely. I'm mean -- I don't even want to go there.

O'BRIEN: All right. We've got to leave it there. If we're getting into Madonna, it's time to go.

Laura Ries, Robbie Vorhaus, thanks very much for doing some spin team action for us today and helping us understand a little bit about what were they thinking.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 10, 2003 - 15:11   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you know the saying, sex sells. Clothing marketer Abercrombie & Fitch seem to know that pretty well. But its quarterly catalog, really, they call it a magalog, whatever that is. It features naked models and threesomes, a little bit hot-to-handle discussions about all sorts of sexual activities.
Family groups launched protests. And now Abercrombie & Fitch says, you know, we're going to sell perfume in the same spot anyway. The company has a storied history. It began selling camping gear in 1892. It once catered to President Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh. And, as recently as 1960, if you went to the store, you would have found fishing lures and shotguns for sale and everybody fully clothed.

Now it's all about selling hip threads to teens and preteens, spending a lot of money for stuff that looked ripped and ugly. Well, that's my own personal opinion. But what's all this fuss about? And, perhaps, is it playing into the company's hands?

Let's talk about it with marketing strategist Laura Ries right here in Atlanta, and P.R. company founder Robbie Vorhaus in New York.

Good to have you both with us.

ROBBIE VORHAUS, VORHAUS PUBLIC RELATIONS: How are you?

O'BRIEN: I'm well.

First of all, what -- Robbie, we'll begin with you -- what, pray tell, is a magalog?

VORHAUS: Well, what a magalog is, is a bunch of people sitting around saying, boy, catalog are very expensive to produce. L.L. Bean and a lot of other catalog people know that. And they were thinking, well, wouldn't it be great if we came up with an idea that actually got people to pay for our catalog. How are we going to do that? Sex sells. Let's try that.

O'BRIEN: Ah.

And so, basically, Laura, Abercrombie sort of defined this whole genre. Pretty slick move there. It's kind of a clever way to get the merchandise in front of people's faces.

LAURA RIES, BRANDING ANALYST: Oh, absolutely. It was a fabulous idea. But, remember, this was done back in 1997. And, at the time, it was brand new. It was exciting. They were giving away these racy catalogs, or selling them, giving them away to some of their customers, the credit card customers in particular. But fabulous idea. It was cutting edge. It was racy.

The problem is, is having to outdo yourself year after year. To get the covers, to get the kids interested and excited and titillated, you're going to have to do something more and more outrageous. And I think, after six years, they finally crossed the line. I was blushing just looking at those pictures. Where are the clothes? What's going on? It's definitely a problem. They have reached a line. They've offended customers.

O'BRIEN: All right, but, Robbie, I suppose the fact that we are talking about this very subject right now might be interpreted as, what's the old saying, as long as they spell the name right, it's good publicity, right?

VORHAUS: Well, that's the old model.

What is this about? I always thought that, to sell clothes, you should show the clothes.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Or not the lack of.

VORHAUS: Or the lack -- exactly.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: And the other thing that's interesting about this is that it's -- a great brand that's using sex is Victoria Secret.

And this is actually a good thing for Abercrombie & Fitch, because they have a choice now to go back. It not what happens to you. It's what you do with happens to you. So they can say, look, we're sexualizing teens. We're getting feedback on that. We don't stand for anything. Our same-store sales are down. Let's go back and be a great American brand, like we've always been known for prior to this time.

And they've got a great chance to -- what does youth stand for? Hope. Aspiration. Potentiality. Goodness, what are we telling our kids by looking at this? We're saying, if you look at their catalog, if you look at some of the issues that they're having with hiring only the whites -- if you look at the catalog, it's predominantly white. And we're saying, this is a great chance for parents to say, look, you know what? Look at this catalog. This is saying that, unless you're white, unless you've got a hard body, unless you really love sex when you're at this age, you're not going to have any fun.

That's a lie.

(CROSSTALK) O'BRIEN: That is a bad message. I don't like that as a parent. What do you think?

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: Yes, well, wait a minute, but they've been saying this same message from 1997, getting the same outraged consumer groups going after them. Why, suddenly after six years, have they decided to finally throw in the towel? Well, I think they're having trouble.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: Because it's all about money. It's about money. It's about money.

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: Their brand is losing it.

VORHAUS: That's right. Exactly.

RIES: They've been around for 10 years and no longer are they cool.

VORHAUS: Exactly.

RIES: So what are they going to do? They're double-digit sales. They're a public company. And investors, when you get a lot of bad P.R., but your sales are going up, they think it's terrific.

You get this kind of P.R. and consumer hounding you, sales at the store are down, the management now is under increasing pressure. And I think finally buckled in. The catalog was way over the top. And they pulled it. And now they've got to decide, what are they going to do with this great brand?

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Maybe it was

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... bottom. I don't know which.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: Miles, there you go again. Always, it's fun.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: I want to get an e-mail in here. Then you can go, Robbie, All right.

Craig in Orlando has this for us: "I think their catalog was an original, artistic approach to selling clothing" -- although we didn't see much clothing. But, anyway. "While it was risque, it was done both sensually and tastefully. It's too bad they're no longer doing it."

And I'm going to add as a footnote to this, Robbie, as I send it over to you, is, this wasn't sent out in a blanket way to kids. This was something that was sold, they say, to people with proper I.D. and the right age in the store.

VORHAUS: Oh, come on. They can say whatever they want to say.

This is about money. This is about the old business model of, let's see how we can manipulate kids to believe that they're not OK just the way they are, but this is the way that you should be. You should be not feeling good about yourself. You should be looking at these white kids who are having sex. They're the ones who are having fun.

And it's baloney. It's not the way that the world is. We have got to step back. Consider this, Miles. Consider a brand that says, we want to reach youth. We want to be the No. 1 youth brand, and we're going to teach kids what they can be, the values that they can express, the potentiality that they can do.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Yes, but don't you think that would be a dud, Robbie? I wonder, knowing kids as you do, they want to rebel against their parents and they don't want to necessarily be up with people or whatever.

(CROSSTALK)

VORHAUS: Well, then let's not sexualize our children.

O'BRIEN: I'm with you on that.

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: Oh, it's a problem, I think, with all fashion brands, because they all take this approach to use sex. Sex sells.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: What about Calvin Klein, right?

RIES: Calvin Klein. Remember the kiddie porn ads? And they started with Brooke Shields. That was a big hoopla in that day. Nothing comes between me and my Calvins. And that ad was eventually pulled. But all fashion brands have done this. And it's a problem, absolutely, for society.

VORHAUS: And let me ask you, where are they today? Where are they today?

RIES: Well, after about 10 years, you just can't sustain coolness.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: No matter what.

Let's get Jean in Santa Barbara. Then I want to ask how a brand can stay cool in its own way. Jean says this: "What businesses like Abercrombie & Fitch are doing in the minds of young people is truly sickening. Most of my friends are liberal and not at all prudish, but we all seem to be in agreement on this issue." Put her in the Laura camp on this one, actually, in both of your camps.

And then let's do the final one, too, Mike, if we could.

RIES: Jean's a mom, by the way, I'm sure.

O'BRIEN: Undoubtedly.

(CROSSTALK)

RIES: She's not the customer.

VORHAUS: Right. The guy who wrote that before was 21 years old.

O'BRIEN: Well, yes. Jean's in Santa Barbara, but she hasn't been to Neverland. We can say that for sure.

All right, "The catalog was sent to subscribers," says the next e-mail. "Thusly, nonsubscribers have nothing to complain about. If Abercrombie & Fitch were making real money, this would not have discontinued the campaign."

Now, that's the point there that I think you're making, Robert, right?

VORHAUS: That's right.

If you look at, what are they trying to do, they're trying to use an old tool, exactly as Laura has talked about here, exactly as she and her father have written in her book. It's an old tool that's trying to shock. It's not to raise. It's to lower. It's trying to get people to think that they're not good enough just the way they are. And it won't work.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Is that true? It won't work anymore?

RIES: It won't work. Shocking won't work year after year after year.

Think about Madonna. You finally run out of shocking things to do. And people yawn. They just don't think she's cutting edge anymore. She can kiss Britney all she wants.

(CROSSTALK) VORHAUS: She won't let her kids watch TV.

RIES: Yes. Oh, absolutely. I'm mean -- I don't even want to go there.

O'BRIEN: All right. We've got to leave it there. If we're getting into Madonna, it's time to go.

Laura Ries, Robbie Vorhaus, thanks very much for doing some spin team action for us today and helping us understand a little bit about what were they thinking.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com