Abercrombie Fitch Stylista

The court of public opinion can put you out of business even faster than a bankruptcy court. Is the Abercrombie & Fitch brand in a fight for its life? The company is offering to pay Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino not to parade around in its merchandise. Abercrombie & Fitch has released a statement, “A Win-Win Situation,” and griped about “deep concern” about Mr. Sorrentino’s association with the brand. It has even stitched up a “substantial payment” to Mr. Sorrentino “to wear an alternate brand.”

“We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans,” the statement says.

Abercrombie and Fitch

This American retailer focuses on casual wear for millennials ages 18 through 22 with over 300 locations (dimly lit and booming like nightclubs) in the United States and is expanding abroad. However, it’s in a financial and brand triage situation, and the company is taking a very public stand. A key for any brand is to have a clear point of view, and the Abercrombie and Fitch brand is picking a lane with “The Situation,” a 30-plus male character who has the six-pack but not the plastic thingy that holds it together. Abercrombie & Fitch knew this move would be very effective in generating millions of dollars in earned media, from Facebook to phone to cafeteria and mass media. It goes way beyond Jersey, the Jersey Shore show, and the show’s hosts and fans—though they will likely wear more of the brand deliberately in protest, while die-hard and core traditional consumers can feel vindicated over the hubbub and maintain loyalty. Or might the brand potentially risk alienation if there’s a public or social or media backlash inferring snobbery at a time when there’s heightened sensitivity to possible class struggle?

This is likely going to explode in many directions, and Abercrombie & Fitch needs to bear in mind the calamity of Diet Coke’s poor reaction regarding its public claims about misuse of its brand (with Mentos) and exploding cola, or the gossip that dogged Tommy Hilfiger and that brand’s supposed deliberate ignorance of its cachet with rappers in the early hip hop scene. If handled well, this could be win win for all parties, a double whammy where Abercrombie keeps all its customers. Or it could work like the attitude behind the rebirth of Cadillac design, an acknowledgment that you need to crack eggs to make an omelet, which for Caddy meant alienating certain customers.

Now is the big time of testing for the Abercrombie & Fitch brand. It’s out of the gate, and which way does it turn? Let’s see how the brand and its spokespeople act in the fray and what they say. It will help if the leadership team is prepared for crisis communication, ready to be highly effective in extinguishing fires or, in this case, fanning them. The torrent of debate and bright lights will come hard and fast over the next few days, because, as they say in the media, “If it bleeds, it leads.” So Abercrombie & Fitch should be well versed with its key messaging, remembering that sage P.R. advice, “Tell me, tell me what you told me, and tell me again.”

A&F should be expecting the best out of this publicity stunt but also planning for the worse if it pulls a muscle. Consumers may be forgiving, but social stigma can cost a big hunk of brand’s reputation in a single battering.

Given all the excitement, a third priority will be having decentralized decision-making among all the company’s marketing/PR team/agencies, opening all lines of communication with media channels, TV appearances, calls to journalists, for an integrated multi-platform response strategy, backed with a core message.

Finally, you must never change horses midstream, so Abercrombie and Fitch needs to stay the course and reengage its core customer (and investor, come to that), who is now facing challenging times. The proof is not in the pudding, it’s in the eating of the pudding. Let the brand games begin.

Abercrombie Fitch Logo

Abercrombie & Fitch was charged with racial discrimination. And the once venerable clothier, which outfitted everyone from Teddy Roosevelt to JFK, has undergone a makeover. Here’s his original report:

The image of Abercrombie & Fitch is now party-loving jocks and barenaked ladies living fantasy lives.

But all that fair hair and skin has made it a juicy target. It’s being taken to court, accused of racial discrimination in their hiring. Does Abercrombie’s all-American look exclude some Americans?

“All-American doesn’t mean all-white,” says Jennifer Lu, a student at University of California, Irvine, and a former salesperson at a Costa Mesa, Calif., store. Lu and several other young people say they couldn’t get a job, or were fired because their look was not consistent with the store’s look.

What exactly is the Abercrombie & Fitch look?

“It’s dominated by Caucasian, football-looking, blonde-hair, blue-eyed males; skinny, tall,” says Lu. “You don’t see any African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and that’s the image that they’re portraying and that they’re looking for.”

Liu says she was fired after corporate officials visited the store, and, according to her, didn’t like what they saw: “A corporate official had pointed to an Abercrombie poster and told our management at our store, ‘You need to have more staff that looks like this.’ And it was a white Caucasian male on that poster.”

Anthony Ocampo says blacks, Asians and Latinos were sometimes hired by Abercrombie, but weren’t given the opportunity to work in sales. “The greeters and the people that worked in the in-season clothing, most of them white, if not all of them, were white,” says Ocampo. “The people that worked in the stock room, where nobody sees them, were mostly Asian-American, Filipino, Mexican, Latino.”

The lawsuit alleges that Abercrombie hires a disproportionately white sales force, favors white employees for the best positions, and discourages minorities from even applying for jobs. But lawyer and conservative talk show host Larry Elder says too often cases like these end up in court.

“Abercrombie & Fitch ought to have the right to set their own policies, for good or for ill. Look, there’s a restaurant called Hooters. Hooters requires you to have certain kinds of physical accoutrements,” says Elder. “Will that do? And I think people understand that. Should they have a right to hire waitresses because they want to attract a certain kind of clientele who want to ogle at the waitresses? I think so.”

But the young people who are suing say all that’s irrelevant. They say companies like Abercrombie need to be reminded what being American is all about.

“All-American, their all-American image, does not mean all-white. That’s not right. That’s not legal,” says Lu.

“An all-American look is every shade,” asks Safer.

“Yes, absolutely,” says Lu.