Abercrombie, Sponsoring Losers Everywhere

obama_ab

Originally uploaded by distillerymedia

The thing I love about strategists and trendspotters is the amount of time we spend thinking about what things “might” mean. We are like brand conspiracy theorists that live slightly to the left of any sane consumer.

So let the debate begin. Is Abercrombie and Fitch subversively getting product placement on national television; or as most of us realize that these backdrops are carefully choreographed, is Obama playing to the mainstream fashion (in)sensibility of America?

OR, is it even more sinister, is Obama covertly courting the gay but-look-like-robot vote?

UPDATE: it turns out it wasn’t an Abercrombie marketing campaign, although I’d argue it became one anyway. So that leaves the decision at the foot of the Obama campaign– which of the above reasons drove them to put these guys in the camera’s eye?

hat tip to adrants

Abercrombie and Fitch Encourages Women to Be Their Best

Sunset joggers on a nude beach in Mexico.

Originally uploaded by PhotoFusion

… just so long as it involves nudity. Drumroll please… Abercrombie and Fitch has lauched Gilly Hicks of Sydney, an underwear company complete with an Austrailan sun-drenched backstory. It’s sort of like Abbie Winters, but for perfect people. There’s some debate around whether it is a real brand launch and that they’ll later actually sell things, or whether their design is solely to get attention and put some sexy in Abercromie since they can’t have their models ride horses in the nude anymore. Which, by the way, the horses never liked.

Frankly, I don’t care either way but I like the approach purely for marketing purposes. You build a backstory, enhance the brand with imagery, continue to sell teenage fantasy. Of course, some argue that it isn’t teenage fantasy but rather fantasy about teenagers — and they may have a point here. But I still like the move and the video made me want to move to Australia.