This week Koto sent out another of their annoyingly good newsletters on the topic of brand evolution and revolution. And so the key points were still milling about in my head yesterday when I found myself on Carnaby Street, staring at something I never expected to see.
But before I tell you what it was, I wonder if I can make you guess the brand?
Ok, so it’s the late 2000’s. Nickelback and Pink are in the top 10. The iPhone has just launched. Paris, Britney and Lindsay are on the rampage. You enter the store. The music is pumping, the scent is heady, and the lights are as low as the rise on the staffs’ jeans. You’re not shopping, you’re sinking into a world where youth and beauty have shed their innocence at the door – you’re at a frat party with no beginning and no end.
Yup, you’re in Abercrombie & Fitch. And I’m sorry if that was triggering for you. But talk about brand building! This was a brand you knew was coming before you even saw it – a brand you could smell, hear and, in some kind of weirdly erotic way, taste, simply by walking past. Like a controversial pop star, A&F was a brand that millions of teens loved and their parents feared – Christina Aguilera’s tongue flick cast in denim.
The toxic femininity of the 90’s may have done a real number on me, my body image, and my overall mental health, but A&F clothes made teen-me feel good. I revelled in the power that a pair of their jeans – slung low and slashed across the thigh – could offer simply by wearing them. And the stores were the perfect encapsulation of that feeling – dramatic, intoxicating, sexy.
If it sounds like I’m making a case for Abercrombie & Fitch, I’m not. I was a dumb, privileged white girl who didn’t know any better. I’m talking about the power of branding, and how when it came to world-building, A&F were the best of the best, up their with your Ralph Laurens, and your Apples, and your Supremes.
But the people who should have known better and didn’t, were the people who ran it. The privileged white men who sexually abused and exploited their staff, and discriminated against minorities. These people failed morally, failed their employees and, in doing so, failed the brand. No longer sultry and brooding, A&F seemed dark and dangerous – they took your fun, illicit drink and spiked it for their own ends. Their actions, or their lack of action in terms of potentially evolving or revolutionising the company, meant the brand got backed into a corner. They couldn’t go big, and – as a publicly traded entity – they couldn’t go home either.
And this is what stopped me cold in Carnaby Street. The Abercrombie & Fitch store of today is beyond bland. It’s numb. It’s blank. It’s got nothing to say. It’s been in – as the guys at Puck describe the likes of CNN and The Discovery Channel – “managed decline”. The lighting was bright, the music was muzak, and the staff totally average-looking, not a hip-bone in sight. The brand was gone in all but name.
A quick skim through their recent investor presentations (look, I can’t wear slutty jeans anymore, I get my kicks where I can), reveals a slow and steady business strategy to get them out of the darkness and back into profitability. 2019’s report talks about meeting “challenges” and “complications” with “balance”, “consistency” and “tight management”. You can’t revolutionise a brand in that sort of environment, you can only put it on life support whilst you sort the real shit out, like inventory and store fleet. Fast forward to Q2 2024 and it’s still very much about “maintaining discipline” and “sustainable profits”, but things are looking better.. Their share price is up and down, but mostly up, and they’re working on a fly-wheel strategy they’re calling “Know them Better” and “Wow them Everywhere”. I’m not sure they’ve ever really been about “wow”, but anyway…
Nevertheless, until reports of A&F’s former CEO injecting male models in the penis leave the newsfeed, there’s really not much Abercrombie & Fitch can do with their brand. They can’t evolve and they can’t revolutionise. They can’t draw on its history and the current trend for 90’s nostalgia, because that’s toxic and triggering. And they can’t start over on a blank slate, because their current story is too uncertain.
Eventually their time may come. Personally, I think they’ve squandered their chances and barely deserve a come-back. But nevertheless, one day they’ll be able to take their brand off ice and put in a call to somewhere like Koto or JKR or Landor where someone like us will have the incredible brief of figuring out what the Abercrombie & Fitch world could look, sound, smell, taste and feel like for the 2020’s and beyond.
Right, that’s enough from me. What do you think? If the old A&F was about sex, elitism, and casual luxury, what would brand revolution be about? Answers on a post-it, or in the comments below.