Article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/abercrombie-reputation-ceo-comments_n_3288836.html

WATCH watch?v=fwDTBEsdiVI (Ellen says ‘Fitch Please’)

source: http://cdn.madamenoire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/abercrombie-fitch.jpg

‘Candidly, 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. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.’ After the interview with CEO Mike Jeffries went public, shares dropped and many complains were received.

It was originally a good idea to shape the business encouraging nice body shapes, together with hot models at shops, it made a great marketing effect. However Mike made a mistake by telling an unspoken secret- wrongly defining plus size women are not beautiful and Abercrombie doesn’t welcome them (ie. not offering XL & XXL women size), this argument was also brought out in another classmates blog youre-too-fat-to-wear-our-clothes, and both Tessa and I mentioned it greatly affected the image of the company and harmed their reputation.

Abercrombie lost the battle against H&M and American Eagle because they did not showed concern in balance of their ethics and value proposition. They succeed as a distinguishable brand for young and fit teenagers, however they are sending other customers away because they offended them by stating the wrong standard of beauty. Abercrombie would have made much more business if they amplify their shared value by showing respect to all customers.

source: http://24.media.tumblr.com/1863291972964b72a1b376c430cb6006/tumblr_mmicijbOKe1qzaot3o1_500.jpg