How A CEO Can Wreck A Brand In One Interview

[Admiral Yi]

How can you not see that the issue is his comments were insulting and has very little to do with whether or not he's stocking plus-sized clothing?

Of course it's insulting.  Someone tells you you're not attractive, it's insulting.  So what?  Dude doesn't want their business, so what are they going to do about it?  Hold their breath until A&F starts making XXL clothes?

[Razgovory]

Meh, all your sarcasm aside, a lot of brands actually are marketed as exclusive/luxurious, which means deliberately limiting the client base.

Exclusive/luxurious means selling to people with money.
Selling to people with money is a long established successfuly business strategy.
However, there is not exactly a clear overlap between "young, pretty, rich" and lots of dough.

Malthus is more on the right track, but the trick to that marketing strategy is maintaining a certain degree of subtlety and indirection.

They sell to teenagers, so hitting them over the head with it might be the best strategy.

[Malthus]

How can you not see that the issue is his comments were insulting and has very little to do with whether or not he's stocking plus-sized clothing?

Of course it's insulting.  Someone tells you you're not attractive, it's insulting.  So what?  Dude doesn't want their business, so what are they going to do about it?  Hold their breath until A&F starts making XXL clothes?

Yeah, it is kinda hard to get traction by boycotting a business because it doesn't want to sell to you. 

The notion is to entice the "cool kids" or whomever is their target market to boycott on your behalf.

[Admiral Yi]

The notion is to entice the "cool kids" or whomever is their target market to boycott on your behalf.

Right.  And the obvious flaw in that strategy is cool kids are usually dicks.

[Barrister]

The notion is to entice the "cool kids" or whomever is their target market to boycott on your behalf.

Right.  And the obvious flaw in that strategy is cool kids are usually dicks.

I dunno.  Cool kids don't like to think that hey are dicks, even if they are.

[Admiral Yi]

I dunno.  Cool kids don't like to think that hey are dicks, even if they are.

You've been watching too many after school specials.

[Malthus]

Problem is that for every cool kid wannabes convinced not to buy because the clothes seller has insulted the fatties and so is mean, two are likely impelled to buy because the clothes are now firmly imbedded in what passes for their conciousnesses as "clothes that are definitely, positively for cool kids only" and so likely to reinforce their vision of themselves as cool kids. 

[The Minsky Moment]

So I checked the 10Ks
Profitability at A&F was peaking right at the time the CEO gave the Slate interview; it declined after that and has been way down the last three years.

The marketing campaign did work out OK for the CEO though.  He was awarded nearly $50 million in total comp for 2011 even as the stock price plunged to 2009-10 levels.  Not bad considering the whole company only had 128 million in net income.

Guess it is good to be a cool kid after all.

[Valmy]

He was awarded over $40 million in total comp for 2011 even as the stock price plunged to 2009-10 levels.  Not bad considering the whole company only had 128 million in net income.

Ok NOW I am insulted!

[Malthus]

So I checked the 10Ks
Profitability at A&F was peaking right at the time the CEO gave the Slate interview; it declined after that and has been way down the last three years.

The marketing campaign did work out OK for the CEO though.  He was awarded nearly $50 million in total comp for 2011 even as the stock price plunged to 2009-10 levels.  Not bad considering the whole company only had 128 million in net income.

Guess it is good to be a cool kid after all.

The ones storming the media should be the stockholders.

[garbon]

http://www.upworthy.com/how-does-the-worst-human-being-of-retail-sleep-at-night-after-he-sees-this-he-wont?g=2&c=la1

That's actually what I saw first.

[garbon]

How can you not see that the issue is his comments were insulting and has very little to do with whether or not he's stocking plus-sized clothing?

I see that it is insulting, sure.  Lots of insulting and stupid things have been said during 2006 and since.  What I do not see is why people are personally outraged by something that seems to have been resolved seven years ago.  Are people really this hardup for something to be insulted by?

I think you are missing something that Gral picked up on. Most people don't know that the story is from 7 years ago.

[The Larch]

There's a campaign now to donate used A&E clothes to the homeless. 

[fhdz]

There's a campaign now to donate used A&E clothes to the homeless. 

Best response of all, IMO.

[Phillip V]

There's a campaign now to donate used A&E clothes to the homeless. 

Back when I was a teenager, I bought used Abercrombie clothes off of eBay. I needed to conform at affordable prices.