Posts Tagged ‘ Hajib ’

You Don’t Look Hollister: You’re Fired

February 26th, 2010. By AbiK

What? The uber-hip, ultra-prep and ubiquitous Abercrombie & Fitch is at the center of an EEOC Complaint re: banning a Muslim employee from wearing her hijab (aka head scarf, for those of you less “hip” to all things diverse). Perish the thought!

Say it isn’t so, but oh, it’s true! Seems the Brand is the Look, and the Look is All-American-prep and so—you know, by that theory of transitivity you learned in prep school—well, the Brand is All-American-prep. Like complete mirror image. And we know brand integrity is Everything. Cap E intended.

Abercrombie & Fitch lost me a number of years ago—they used to be this quiet, reserved, quality outfitter with a store nestled in the upper recesses of Trump Tower on 5th in NYC. But then things changed. With folks like J. Crew eating up market share, well, A & F apparently found themselves in need of a re-image. Repositioning. ReBranding.

Rebrand—and expand with companies like Hollister—they did. Go into a store now and you’ll be greeted by a sea of 20-something oneness and assimiliation set to the backdrop of glaring music. Their black & white ads suggest a more “knowing” (yes, sexually) and somewhat monied and genteel crowd that I imagine the sales side of the biz only wishes it could duplicate on the sales floor. But there’s the rub. It can’t.

See, you can homogenize your ad campaign. Not so your sales staff.

So what happens when brand image isn’t playing out at the stores, or in this particular case on the stockroom floor of A&F subsidiary brand Hollister? If you’re a district manager who clearly didn’t read Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Abercrombie & Fitch, EEOC, Hajib, Hollister, Muslim, Umme-Hani Kahn
Posted in Emerging Issues, Employment | 4 Comments »