Apparantly Abercrombie & Fitch, a clothing brand aimed at "preppy" young adults and teens is planning on paying the members of the warped-reality show 'Jersey Shore' to stop wearing articles of their clothing. Now, I understand why some big-name labels (Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, etc.) pay people to start wearing their clothing on air to promote sales, but to stop...? Obviously A&F has never heard the saying "any publicity is good publicity". Abercrombie reps claim that having figures such as Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino wearing the A&F logo/name on screen could ruin Abercrombie's "image".
But what exactly is that "image"? Abercrombie & Fitch uses advertisements depicting half naked young men and women clinging to each other to sell, yeah.., you guessed it. Clothing. Which is where I get confused. Because if the cast of 'Jersey Shore' is constantly running around half naked in the first place, you could just throw an Abercrombie polo on them and BAM!, A&F advertisement. Abercrombie already advocates (and obviously doesn't have a problem with...to an extent, apparantly) the "sex sells" tactic, and Jersey Shore basically revolves around sex. So...what's the problem? I mean, I see how people like Snooki aren't the best of role models. I really do. But neither are the almost pornographic posters A&F spreads throughout malls everywhere, huh? As Sophocles said many years ago, "What you cannot enforce, do not command.". All I have to say is, I'm interested to see how this
This is a response to Katie's post. I disagree. I feel that A&F has every right and reason to try and pay Jersey Shore not to wear their clothes. Now, it might not be the most beneficial of plans to their budget in the short run, but the payoff in PR is huge. Look, the point is that people have perceptions and until you confirm those perceptions, they're only just that: perceptions. You might think that A&F basically "already advocates the 'sex sells' tactic", but another person might consider their advertising realistic and not as bad as, say, Victoria's Secret. But if A&F says, "Okay, we're going to let the people of Jersey Shore wear our clothing when they're promoting drinking and fighting and other bad activities," then people aren't just going to perceive that A&F clothing is worn by unsavory people, they're going to know that A&F clothing is worn by unsavory people. And some people might not care about that, but just think about all those radical mom and dads, all those people who take things to the extreme in "protecting young minds"...and suddenly, people from Jersey Shore wearing A&F clothing is a very large problem for the PR department.
ReplyDeleteWow, I agree with you completely! Why should A&F care who's wearing their clothes? They're selling and that's what matters. If the company is that concerned about tv stars wearing their clothes and giving them a certain "image", they might as well ask second hand stores to stop selling to the less wealthy. If A&F have a problem with haphazordous celebrity bimbos "promoting" their clothes, I wonder how they'd feel about the fact that my GRAMMY wears A&F religiously! =D
ReplyDelete--Chloe<3
I agree with you. A sales a sale, no matter whose wearing it. How can they tell them to stop wearing their clothes, then have a shirt that says "GTL"? That just doesn't make sense to me. They should be happy that their selling to a new crowd. If your someone who doesn't like to see The Situation wearing A&F then stop watching Jersey Shore or suck it up.
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