as we talked about diversity in todays presentation of tnt, i was thinking about one specific company that hit the headlines a few months ago: abercrombie & fitch and their "look policy".
the CEO of abercrombie & fitch, mike jeffries, a self-proclaimed fan of cool-kid elitism explains that - only "good-looking" and thin people get hired for his stores in order to attract other "good-looking" and thin people to shop there
- marketing is exlusively for "cool kids"
- for men they offer sizes up to xxl (sporty and muscular guys "need" bigger sizes) whereas for women they do not offer bigger sizes than 40 because anyone who is wearing a plus size is not cool enough to shop at a&f
what do you think? is it ok to say what a brand actually stands for by discriminating "not-good-looking" people? who decides which person is good-looking or not?
before writing everything down which crosses my mind right now i end this post with the following statement of mike jeffries:
…we go after the cool kids. we go after the attractive all-american kid
with a great attitude and a lot of friends. a lot of people don’t belong
[in our clothes], and they can’t belong.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/06/03/abercrombie-and-fitch-cool-kids-and-corporate-bullies/
when you click on the link above you will find a funny video of Ellen DeGeneres (american tv host) - who addressed the a&f controversy on her talk show - it really pays off watching it!!!
Dieser Kommentar wurde vom Autor entfernt.
AntwortenLöschenHello Marlene,
AntwortenLöschenI have heard about this matter before and I need to say that I was really shocked and disappointed when I heard it.
In my opinion it is totally unappropriate to say something like this. He was referring to the high school kids in his statement. High School Kids. It is exactly them who still have little self awareness and who need to be "cool kids" in school in order to be popular. And then there comes a statement like this along. So from now on, all the kids who do not wear A&F in school are not cool anymore.
I think especially in this age it is really a big problem to hear a statement like this. This might be a reason why some kids are being mobbed and even a reason some kids start starving themselves in order to fit into A&F clothes and in order to be "cool".
Of course I know that this is just their company policy but he would have been able to state this policy in another way. The way he explained his policy was discriminating and totally unappropriate for a CEO like he is. Of course everybody who has been in an A&F shop before knows that they only have very small sizes and that there are only beautiful people working in there - but to explicitly state that A&F is only catering for the cool, good-looking and skinny people is just too much.
I could go on endlessly about this topic, as I really think this is the worst thing you can do - publicly discriminating people by just stating the company policy.
By the way,have you heard about the reaction to this statement in the US? There they started a so called A&F boykott. They founded a "group" where they collected A&F clothing in order to give the clothes away for free to the homeless people on the streets in order to damage the A&F reputation. I mean I do not think that the A&F CEO would consider the homless on the streets "cool kids".
There is one more thing to say for me: This statement really changed my opinion about A&F. I was once asked to work for Hollister (which is the same as A&F, just for the west coast and a little cheaper) but I definitely said no when I heard their working conditions. (they even tell you how to put on your make-up and you are not allowed to work in the shop for more than 3 hours in a row because after 3 hours you do not look as good anymore)..
I think after this there is nothing left to say..
-Steffie
It is okay to have a target group, but it is definitely not ok to discriminate people. Most people actually reacted very disappointed to this statement, it created a huge "shitstorm" on the internet and as Steffie already mentioned, some people gave away theyr Abercrombie clothes to homeless people.
AntwortenLöschenIn this case Mike Jeffries actually hurt his company by his ridiculous statement. I don't want to buy any more Abercrombie clothes, let alone work for a company that stands for something like that.
On this topic I just want to give a really short comment: I think it is totally inappropriate and I certainly will never buy anthing from this company, BUT the marketing strategy worked out the way they wanted: people all around the world are taking about the company and thus they got a lof publicity. So in the end it was a smart move for the company - their sales obviously didn't decline because of this statement.
AntwortenLöschenI also heard about that in the news, and was actually quite shocked that he said that in public. Of course we all know, that the brand abercrombie is associated with the cool and beautiful American lifestyle and as soon as you've seen a shop assistant there you don't question this corporate policy anymore. So, it's one thing to have kind of an unofficial target group and that you want a brand to be associated with beauty and coolness. But to actually discriminate potential employees because of their looks and to say that he doesn't want "ugly" people to wear his clothes is more than inappropriate. Furthermore, out of curiosity, I googled that guy because I wanted to know how he looks and what he thinks is beautiful, and I was shocked when I saw the pictures. Google him yourself ;-)
AntwortenLöschenDear Marlene,
AntwortenLöschenThank you for this article! I also had already heard about those policies at Abercrombie & Fitch and it is kind of obvious when entering a store. However, I just agree with you all that this Mike Jeffries' statement was clearly unappropriate.
I personally know someone who is working part-time at Hollister and has already worked there several times in the past. As you can imagine, this guy is very handsome and he somehow seems to be into Hollister/Abercrombie&Fitch as he likes to buy there and wear their clothes. I will definitely ask him what he thinks about the CEO's statement!
@Anja: Thanks for the hint, I googled Mike Jeffries and it seems to me that he himself has to work out some "issues" to come to terms with himself.