Brand Positioning Cannot Catch Up With The "Millennial Generation" A&F Fashion.

No matter from design, Distribution channel Or price comparison, the traditional clothing for young people represented by A&F needs more changes. In 2014, Abercrombie&Fitch's flagship store in Asia, the flagship store in Shanghai, opened in Jingan's Kerry Center in Shanghai. The male platform platform of a row of abdominal muscles showed up, attracting a large number of onlookers. 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.

　 　 brand Image no longer personality

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, A&F's 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 unlike luxury brands in advertising to emphasize brand characteristics and emphasize sexy, as a trend brand, so that products have a proper price performance, is also important for sexy marketing. 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.

　　 Brand positioning can not catch up Millennial generation

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."

According to a survey conducted by Boston consulting company, the loyalty of a millennial generation 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.

　 　 Brand building Facing older consumer groups

At present, domestic retail demand growth is almost stagnant. The strong performance of the Chinese market has led A&F to open its store in the United States on the same side and make a high-profile appearance in mainland China. But fast fashion brands such as GAP, Forever 21, H&M and ZARA are accelerating the decline of the traditional fashion market. Under the situation of low performance, we only need to reposition to seize the market and offset the continuous losses.

JonathanRamsden, chief operating officer, said that brands have been left behind by young people in recent years, so they are ready to create new product classification, market planning and price positioning for older consumers. Jonathan Ramsden said: "this is to make the brand more differentiated, to develop the A&F in a more high-end direction, and to make Hollister closer to fast fashion."

Hollister is even better than A&F at present. The proportion of the two stores is about 2:1, and it is also the pioneer of Hollister in the Chinese market. First, shops opened in Beijing and Shanghai, and then A&F was settled in Shanghai.

The future of A&F and Hollister is unknown. For now, the brand strategy adopted is not bright. From the perspective of market competition, the worries of fast fashion saturation in the first tier cities have gradually become a reality. Before A&F entered Shanghai, in February 2014, New Look, the second largest women's clothing retailer in the United Kingdom, was officially launching the first Chinese store. It announced that while expanding its business, it had shifted its energy to speed up China's expansion. Its pricing from products to target customers was similar to those of ZARA, GAP, H&M, C&A and UNIQLO. Hollister as a fast fashion brand had no unique competitiveness in terms of store size or clothing category. In the core business circle of the first tier cities, the competition between the trend brands and fast fashion brands can be seen as white hot. Hollister and A&F want to find a way out.