A&F'S Brand Positioning Can'T Catch The Millennial Generation.

No matter from design, sales channels or price, the traditional youth clothing represented by A&F needs more changes.

In 2014, following Tokyo, Singapore, Hongkong and Seoul, Abercrombie&Fitch flagship store in Asia, the flagship store in Shanghai, opened in Shanghai Jingan Kerry Center, and the male platform platform of a row of abdominal muscles showed up in fifth.

Naked men is the marketing strategy of the former company CEO Mike Jeffries, which began to save A&F from 2009.

Abercrombie&Fitch (hereinafter referred to as A&F) upholds the style of the Academy. It mainly takes the leisure route, the product quality is excellent, and the price is also biased towards the middle class consumption standard. In 2009, many young consumers began to buy clothes that were similar in price but lower in price from fast fashion brands. A&F, the once famous American fashion retail group, suffered huge losses and began to make more changes after adjusting prices.

In 2014, under the pressure of "fast fashion", the performance of A&F group declined significantly.

According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2014, the overall sales of A&F group fell 12% to 911 million 400 thousand US dollars, net profit fell 25% to 30 million 400 thousand US dollars, and the same store sales fell 10%, of which the US market fell 7%, and the international market dropped 15%. The company also plans to close another 180 stores in the United States before 2015.

The third quarter is just one of A&F's consecutive poor performance reports.

A&F group has just retired "CEO Mike Jeffries" believes that the decline in performance is mainly due to the decrease in the number of shopping centres and the increase of discounts: "in addition, the sales decline of" A&F "big LOGO and elk trademark products also put pressure on the company, and the company will continue to reduce such products, so as to cater to the needs of consumers.

But in the industry's view, A&F's bright red light is directly related to the extrusion of fast fashion brands such as Forever 21, H&M and ZARA.

No matter from design, sales channels or price, the traditional youth clothing represented by A&F can no longer compete with fast fashion brands.

A&F's style is the Ivy League campus and California surfing, targeting casual clothing and accessories designed for customers aged 18 to 22, mainly for middle class customers, so the price is not cheap.

From 1995 to 2008, A&F has been using this mode. Sales have increased by 20 times. But with the rapid development of fast fashion industry, consumers can spend 100 to 200 yuan RMB on the same products as A&F, while the price of A&F still needs more than 400 yuan, so consumers begin to turn to a more cost-effective clothing brand.

In the summer of 2009, in order to change the predicament of the decline in sales at that time, A&F launched the new sub brand Hollister, which is a western style product line. The main customers are 14 to 18 years old teenagers. The product style is similar to that of A&F, but it is more youthful, dynamic and priced lower.

Brand launched at the same time began to promote sales of naked men in all brand stores, and quickly achieved results.

To this end, the brand has emphasized the brand image of "naked man" in overseas expansion and invested a lot of money for it.

A&F believes that this strategy can make brands look cool in the eyes of teenagers.

In order to highlight its brand characteristics, A&F spent a lot of efforts in the design of the store, taking the Hollister store in taiguli, Sanlitun, Beijing as an example. The whole shop seemed to be a huge nightclub. The rich perfume of the same shop filled the whole space, and the sound of the waves or the loud music matched the dim lights.

Male salesmen put on checked shirts uniformly, while female salesmen wore sexy suspenders or shirts with low necklines. All salesmen were tight jeans and casual shoes.

These stylized marketing methods and consumption experience have made a great contribution to the American brand in the early days of entering the Chinese market.

Nowadays,

The old "naked man" propaganda strategy has been criticized for many times that it can not keep up with the times. This sexy marketing method may not bring real sales results.

Brands can also be sexy, and marketing can also be sexy.

Especially in the eye economic tide brought by the Internet, sexy marketing is a very aggressive weapon, so that consumers can never forget the brand.

But it is different from luxury brands to emphasize sexy in advertising, in order to highlight brand characteristics.

It is equally important for sexy marketing to make products have a proper price performance ratio.

A&F executives shirk the responsibility for declining sales to the global economy, but brand experts point out that although teenagers are impressed by noisy, dark shops and semi naked men's models, they are no longer willing to wear A&F's jeans and T-shirts that have long been expensive, and the gap between sexy marketing and product design of A&F is obvious.

Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology:Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, commented: "in a super interconnected world, the decay rate of A&F will be very fast, and they can not catch up with the trend of young people in Dubai and Shanghai."

Boston consulting company and other surveys show that

Loyalty to a particular brand is lower than that of the previous generation, and they are more willing to shape their own style.

Accenture said the market value of the millennial consumption drive is currently $600 billion and will grow to $1 trillion and 400 billion in 2020.

Among them, men's clothing consumption is two times that of other people, and women spend more than 1/3 on clothing consumption than their predecessors.

For brands, the pursuit of personalization has become an important part of the entire sales process.

The clothing industry is the most obvious industry affected by this individualized trend.

In September 2014, A&F decided to reduce the size of Logo on clothing.

Previously, the obvious A&F logo on the chest has always been the most classic design of the brand.

A spokesman for the company said: "no one is willing to be a walking billboard now."

In the increasingly rational atmosphere of consumers, many brands are beginning to turn the low profile line, quiet mood and "less show off" products, better reflect the psychological demands of consumers after the economic recovery.

Joseph Nunes, a marketing professor at University of Southern California, did a research on this, and those "quiet" products without brand names clearly caught the hearts of consumers.

In addition to Logo, A&F has begun to increase the category of women's clothing products to attract more female customers between 16 and 22 years old.

In the face of the new generation of young people, the problem we need to realize is that fast fashion brands find that young consumers pay more attention to personality development through the Internet and social media.

So the traditional brand is embarrassed. It is stuck between the low price, the poor fabric quality and the popular style.

A&F although there is a positioning that can match the rebellion, independence and personality of the millennial generation, there is still a big gap between product and brand image and personalized positioning.