If this guy doesn't scare the willies out of you just looking at him then look again. He's Mike Jeffries, the 61-year old (no, not a typo) CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, and this is his marketing philosophy:For example, when I ask him how important sex and sexual attraction are in what he calls the "emotional experience" he creates for his customers, he says, "It's almost everything. That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that."
As far as Jeffries is concerned, America's unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere. "In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids," he says. "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. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don't alienate anybody, but you don't excite anybody, either."
And what does he have to say about such niceties as thong underwear with come hither sayings for young girls?
Our first bump came when I mentioned the 2002 uproar over the company's thongs for middle-school girls, which had "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink" printed on their fronts. "That was a bunch of bullshit," he said, sweating profusely. "People said we were cynical, that we were sexualizing little girls. But you know what? I still think those are cute underwear for little girls. And I think anybody who gets on a bandwagon about thongs for little girls is crazy. Just crazy! There's so much craziness about sex in this country. It's nuts! I can see getting upset about letting your girl hang out with a bunch of old pervs, but why would you let your girl hang out with a bunch of old pervs?"
Who, indeed.
2 comments:
How sad. No wonder society is getting worse.
P.S. I'm surprised that HE's allowed to wear their clothes.
The guy is just downright icky-looking. And what he says about his target group makes me want to avoid Abercrombie & Fitch like the plague. But then again I'm 46 and overweight and probably wouldn't want to wear the stuff anyway.
Ever see any of the "Final Destination" movies? These films serve one purpose: To show a variety of attractive, self-absorbed, brainless young people get snuffed in a variety of very imaginative ways. Show some guy speeding down the interstate in his Hummer, yakking away on his cell phone about what girl he plans to poke next, and you know that he is destined for a horrifying demise.
And he's the EXACT sort of guy who wears Abercrombie & Fitch!
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