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2.9.3 Hollister
Hollister is another successful branch of the company, having the laidback spirit of Southern California in its products. It targets the age group of 14-18 year old both to the U.S market and abroad. Even though the brand has the beach relaxed vibe which most many consumers feel it’s the “equivalent” to Abercrombie & Fitch. As said, this brand gives off the vibe of bringing the beach to the world. Its products include jeans, shorts, t-shirts, dress shirts, dresses, swimwear, fragrances, as well as accessories. Hollister is also priced cheaper compared to Abercrombie & Fitch where some consumers feel they are paying less but the same quality and style of product.
2.9.4 Gilly Hicks
Gilly Hicks is not only the youngest brand to the company of Abercrombie and Fitch Co. but also the most unique brand out of the four brands. The target market of this brand is towards female consumers, because the brand specializes in producing bras, underwear, and swimwear for young woman. Gilly Hicks cites Sydney, Australia as the main source of its carefree and sexy inspiration. The vibe of the brand
2.10 Abercrombie and Fitch: Marketing and Advertising
Abercrombie and Fitch’s mission statement: “We are committed to providing comfortable and lasting clothing that look good” Having a basic understanding of how Abercrombie exposes its image to its customers the company has a marketing plan that is different from other retailing companies, with that said Abercrombie & Fitch isn’t a company
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resell their products to other customers or distributers, because they think that it will ruin the unique shopping experience that the store provides to its customers. Abercrombie & Fitch has made a great deal of effort toward brand protection for their products, they refuse having a third party reseller because they want their customers to feel exclusive when they purchase a product that can only be exclusive to the brand. This kind of marketing strategy is difficult to achieve due to a huge loss in revenue for the products that go to waste, but sets an
“exclusive” image for the brand and for its customers to feel that they have some form of social status when wearing the brand.
Abercrombie and Fitch have 3 strategies to keep and draw its customers back for more. First, the brand image of the company is one of their most important assets, due to the positioning that they are able to charge a premium on their apparel.
The company has stayed true to its philosophy of only providing quality products to the customer, and believes that their efforts will be rewarded in the years to come, even through slow economic times the brand has refused to cut down on their product prices, because they believe if they do so it would permanently tarnish their iconic brands. Instead the company will introduce new items for their targeted consumers, in this way the
consumers that buy the product would retell their experience to others on how soft or how comfortable and good looking it makes them feel, this kind of word mouth advertising is also one of the company’s marketing strategies.
Abercrombie & Fitch considers itself as one of the pioneers of using the in-store experience as a marketing vehicle due to limiting its outreaching marketing efforts,
Abercrombie & Fitch regards their in-store experience as the greatest medium for each brand to communicate its ethos. From entering the store customers experience the unique scents, music, lighting, interior, and sales associates that produces the culture if the store’s brand. All
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stores are presented the same no matter which location but the feeling and attitude is the same for each brand. Having said that the company builds its image on having the “in store”
experience for its customers, the famous scent of their fragrance “Fierce” is a scent that can but smelt once you are near the entrance of the store.
The store assistants where required to promote the company’s exclusive fragrance to its customers by handing them blotter cards with spritz of the “Fierce” fragrance and on an hourly routine of spraying the fragrance every 30 to 45 minutes on the clothing and within the store. When the store assistants hand their customers the blotter cards they approach the customers by asking “Get Fierce or Have you checked out our fragrance Fierce?” with this tag line the company is promoting the brand and the product through the in store experience.
Soon the company installed automatic spritz machines to keep the store smelling fragrant of the scent. By engaging the scent to the customer’s interests and attention demonstrating the advantage and benefits of the unique perfume. Even though all these four brands have stores in the United States but they also have their way of being direct to their customers, by having official websites for their brands and customers from all over the world can purchase their items online, also each website is designed to give customers an in-store experience too, having models wearing their clothes and looking good.
Another strategy that the company started to establish to draw more customers to shop at the stores as well as online, they started to have special promotion sales which was
something that the brand claimed never to have sale items or special promotion sales on their products. Overtime with the decline of the economy and other retail chain stores as
competitors, the brand started offering different types of promotion strategies such as free shipping on purchases over $250 or 25% discount off the total purchase, there are also times you may get an extra coupon for 25% discount off total purchase for consumers to use for
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there next purchase, this strategy keeps customers coming back and continue to shop.
Through independent websites social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snap Chat all have their own independent fan page to give the direct to consumer experience and exposure for international markets. These fanpages are updated daily to keep its followers attached to the brand and lets their audience feel involved.
The company not only have social media platforms for their customers to follow the company have also created App’s for customers to download and are able to shop through the app and makes the experience more personal, as said there is also a app that features the music and playlist that are exclusively played in the stores, consumers can purchase the playlist app and listen to the music that are played in the current month. As mentioned from the above Abercrombie has fulfilled the AIDA marketing theory, by attracting the customer’s attention (awareness) with images of good looking male models posing in store, which raises interest in customers by focusing on demonstrating and benefits of the brand. Convincing customers to have the desire the product and in store experience that will satisfy their needs.
Therefore, the action leading the consumers towards purchasing the product.
What makes the brand Abercrombie and Fitch so appealing to consumers? Having mentioned that the brand portrays an image of being the “popular and cool” kids in school.
Thus, making the consumer relate or perceive the image as “when seen in Abercrombie &
Fitch clothing you are categorized being in with the popular crowd” The brand always has an image of good - looking models in their clothes posing for their huge blow up photographs within their stores and their shopping bags. The actual stores also spend time making sure the store always smells good with their signature perfume that can be smelt when you are
shopping in the store which is one of the ethics of the company to let their customers to have
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the “in store” experience. As said, consumers may get the lured or attached to the company’s promoting strategies.