Abercrombie caves… a little bit anyway

Good news from today’s Indianapolis Star:
New York Times News Service
December 11, 2003

Retailer pulls plug on racy magazines
Abercrombie & Fitch had drawn heat from a number of Christian, feminist groups

Abercrombie & Fitch, the apparel retailer, says it no longer will publish its provocative quarterly magazine, which included photographs of nude and nearly nude young models.

Since it was introduced in fall 1997, A&F Quarterly has generated a great deal of attention and its share of controversy, including consumer boycotts. On Tuesday, the company said the magazine’s Christmas issue will be its last.

“While it has enjoyed success with the quarterly over the years, the company believes it is time for new thinking and looks forward to unveiling an innovative and exciting campaign in the spring,” read a statement from Abercrombie & Fitch.

A company spokesman declined to comment further, except to say that the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, a much more traditional retail publication, will be expanded both in its size and its distribution.

Abercrombie & Fitch operates nearly 700 clothing stores — including the offshoot Hollister stores — which have an emphasis on teenage and young adult fashions.

The debate over the quarterly heated up recently after the publication of its 280-page Christmas Field Guide, which touted “Group Sex” on its cover.

Following protests from Christian groups and feminist groups, the company announced this month that it was pulling the issue. At the time, it said the magazine was being taken off the shelves to make room for a new Abercrombie & Fitch fragrance.

Over the last several years, a number of groups — including the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, the American Decency Association and Focus on Family — have protested the content of the magazine, suggesting that the sexual images and content represented a prurient and cynical effort to market to young people.

Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, one of the organizations protesting the publication, said the discontinuation of the magazine “doesn’t change a thing.”

“They have a track record of sexual exploitation and there are many different ways to continue that campaign,” he said. His group and others will continue to protest until the company agrees to meet with them and address their concerns fully, Burress said.

The magazine was published four times a year with a distribution of about 200,000 copies through sales at stores (at $6 a copy) and subscriptions ($12 a year). After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the company decided to pull its holiday magazine, saying that the tone of the publication was not suited to the somber mood of the time.

Richard E. Jaffe, a retail analyst with UBS, said that while the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog was “demure,” the magazine was “racy.”

That bifurcated pitch to consumers worked for a while, he said.

“The magalog was effective at raising visibility,” Jaffe said, using a term for the quarterly that connotes aspects of a catalog and a magazine. “In terms of its racy content, it became harder and harder to outdo themselves, to provoke, to generate a reaction and create the excitement of the past.”

Abercrombie & Fitch’s core business has had problems of its own. Sales at stores open at least a year, a crucial retail measurement, have fallen relentlessly, with 39 of the last 46 months showing declines, Jaffe said. Last month, those sales dropped 13 percent.

The Abercrombie & Fitch stores generally are more sophisticated than other youth- oriented retailers: The lights are lower, the floors shinier and the displays slicker.

The items for sale are more expensive than those at many competitors, in part because Abercrombie & Fitch has stuck with a full-price marketing strategy in an age of unceasing discounts.

The magazine, which was produced in part by fashion photographer Bruce Weber and fashion advertising executive Sam Shahid, generally used little in the way of clothing to pitch the apparel line. Rather, it depended on images of languid, barely clothed young models to portray the retailer as cutting edge and countercultural.

The provocative publication was a marketing innovation, in part because it sold advertising to other companies, including SoBe beverages and Sony, which were interested in reaching consumers ages 18 to 24.

Distribution of the Christmas issue was halted earlier this month, and it has become highly sought after. For example, Tuesday on eBay, a copy of the magazine had received a bid of $122.50, with four hours and 30 minutes remaining in the auction.