After craving for weeks for new imagery, the Company has finally blossomed into Spring new and re-envigorating photography! The arrival of the Spring 2011 marketing campaign is a fresh breath of air that has uplifted the instore ambience with brightness and amazement. Sadly, the tendency to recycle old photography has continued to play a role in this season's selection of imagery. Nevertheless, the overall aesthetic is (like always) timeless...
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Main marketing image for A&F |
•Abercrombie & Fitch: The main image for the season is comepletely in-your-face-branding at its best. It does what it is supposed to do: It captures the essence of A&F with the timeless gaze, physical form and "Abercrombie & Fitch" hovering in the background. Moving on, the couple on the beach make a romantic addition that keeps in mind that love pervades and prevails. The two profile images of the male and the female model make a stately (for the male) and euphoric (for the female) impression of the ideal Abercrombie & Fitch man and woman. The Spring 2011 marketing collection would have been complete and perfect with only these pictures, but A&F wanted to throw in photography from Summer 2006 (featuring the threesome). It seems as if the entire collection takes place on an ever-expansive and brilliant land of euphoria...
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Main marketing for abercrombie. |
•abercrombie: The marketing initiates with a shout of totally bad ass appeal! It declares, "POW! We're fist pumping abercrombie kids!" And then as you progress, the marketing softens down the bad ass appeal with classic aesthetic iconic of abercrombie kids. In so saying, the collection (which began with a bad boy punch) concludes with the softness and feminity of the the dog and female model. These concluding images (although having been a part of a previous marketing campaign), make a subtle and poised return that The Sitch really can't complain about...
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Main image for HCo's "Break for Cali" |
•Hollister Co: Amazing. "Break for Cali" Spring 2011 is the best collection of photography Bruce Weber has ever produced for HCo and it is arguably the best collection of this season. This marketing follows in the footsteps of "All I Want in Cali" Christmas 2010 with the use of color, but "Break for Cali" Spring 2011 makes an utterly awe-inspiring and eye-catching use of colors in interlapping, dominating hues of soft blue, green, and brown. The appeal is unprecedented; wonderfully, simply soft and romantic (something never before acquire by HCo's previously hot-and-sexual imagery), and the addition of that adorable, furry friend adds a warm and wholesome feel to it all...again, amazing...
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Main image for Gilly Hicks |
•Gilly Hicks: What is the point of even discussing the marketing for Gilly Hicks. There are only two images included in this collection and both of the are pictures that were used under the bras category online in 2010. This is a clear sign from Abercrombie & Fitch that it is not about to put much effort (and money) into producing significant marketing for a brand that has yet to produce significant sales...Well, the only nice thing of this Spring are the little bows that were added to the promotional material, but that doesn't make up for the pictorial recycling. That model in the main image: She can smile all she wants. Although nice, her smile is utterly redundant and a bore. I hope you can here the American yawns all the way to Bondi Beach, love...
Update (02/10/11): After this post was made,
Vanity Style posted (on February 10, 2011) on the Abercrombie & Fitch campaign. The article, titled
Spring 2011 Abercrombie & Fitch, was featured as the first of the three main articles of the day. It highlighted the power of A&F to capture the consumer's attention to its clothing - the irony being that the marketing ever rarely promotes any clothing. Chiseled, youthful beauty is an iconic trademark of A&F, captued in photography by the renown Bruce Weber, and is the sole force behind the success of the brand. Model James Preston is the main face of the campaign, and has been featured in previous A&F and abercrombie campaigns.