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Men Beware: The Abercrombie and Fitch Effect
- bigtones 8y agoAbercrombie and Fitch share price is at a 17 year low and they have put themselves up for sale. I don't think their strategy is working out too well for them in a market where foreign competitors like Zara and H&M entered with much more effective marketing messages. Abercrombie and Fitch "failed to keep up with changing preferences among customers, and has suffered as a result, plagued with a number of periods of declining sales." https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/05/10/why-abercrombie-fitch-is-up-for-sale https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/05/10/wh...
- tylerwhipple 8y agoI do not know where you are getting this information but ANF stock is not at a 17 year low. The stock price has more than doubled from last year's (and all the time) low. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/anf?ltr=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/anf?ltr=1
- fosco 8y agoArticle grandparent quoted was from last year. You are accurate.
- mayneack 8y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20180729140144/https://www.newneuromarketing.com/men-beware-the-abercrombie-fitch-effect https://web.archive.org/web/20180729140144/https://www.newne...
- stupidcar 8y agoFor the next Apple keynote, Tim Cook is gonna be shirtless and ripped.
- pcurve 8y agoI wouldn't mind see Craig f. do all the talking.
- coherentpony 8y ago> I wouldn't mind see Craig f. do all the talking. Something irks me about this comment. If someone had made the same remark but instead it was about a woman, I wonder what the response would be.
- calimac 8y agoSV is a cesspool of illogical virtue signaling fo-gay posers. The Tim& Craig comment is case and point
- fjsolwmv 8y agoUsually it would be off topic and rude, but this is a thread specifically dedicated to the use of scientifically studied use of sex appeal in marketing.
- sigfubar 8y agoExcuse me, sir. Your homophobia is showing.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- toren 8y agoIt would be a shame if people cared either way.
- joejerryronnie 8y agoIt seems to have worked for Bezos. https://mobile.twitter.com/gramatik/status/890577648296112128 https://mobile.twitter.com/gramatik/status/89057764829611212...
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- dweekly 8y agoBezos' fitness routine may have been responsible for some of the AMZN rally. ;)
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- LarryL 8y agoI find that kind of research disgusting, because their ONLY purpose is to manipulate customers. I also question the ethics of such studies: how can you justify this, ethically? Treating your customers like that is also simply unacceptable. Same problem with those psychologists working on games rewards in order to make you spend more. DISGUSTING.
- eldavido 8y agoSorry you were triggered... On a more serious note, I don't think personal sensibility is a good reason not to perform an experiment, or publish something. The main test should be, "is it true"? And, "What does the evidence show"? A good reason might be if the subjects' rights were somehow violated, which IRB reviews in academic science are designed to prevent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board). Human experimentation is, in general, a highly regulated endeavor. I strongly object to not doing science, or some kind of investigation, because one person finds it "disgusting". I think this attitude is getting more common, despite its harms.
- panarky 8y agoI strongly object to doing whatever the fuck you want with no regard for social or political consequences. There's an attitude that anything goes short of violating an individual's rights, even if your actions do collective damage. Anyone who disagrees or resists this nihilistic attitude is then denigrated as weak-minded, "triggered" or insufficiently masculine. I think this attitude is getting more common, despite its harms.
- zaphar 8y agoOne benefit of this study is that people who are made aware of it may be more conscious of their bias when shopping. This could mitigate the effects. The act of doing the study could have positive effects depending on what the study is used for after. The study itself didn't harm anyone. It just measured an effect by changing a variable. The information it produced could produce positive change or it could produce negative change.
- Jaruzel 8y agoI must be a woman then, because I find the bulky man to be off-putting. I'd still buy from him, but I wouldn't enjoy the interaction. I'd much prefer to buy from the non-dominant man. Manipulating people like this is wrong, but then so are most marketing techniques.
- spiritcat 8y agoOf course you'd buy from him. Don't want him to think you're a low value proposition beta who can't afford to provide for his woman.
- Izkata 8y agoAlthough the exact numbers and who was affected were probably unknown, I can't help but think the general effect was already known because of the shape of mannequins.
- Lxr 8y agoWow, apparently the length of your ring finger is correlated with your testosterone levels.
- radiantswirl 8y agoThe correlation is so strong that scientists can measure the fingers of sprinters and then predict who will win a race between them with near perfect accuracy, based solely on digit ratio, before the race has even begun.
- culot 8y ago*amniotic testosterone levels, apparently, and the ratio is supposedly unaffected by post-birth levels. "The 2D:4D digit ratio is the ratio of the length of the second (index) finger and the fourth (ring) finger. This ratio is, on average, different in men and women. (Men tend to have longer ring fingers relative to their index fingers, while women’s index fingers are about the same length as, or slightly longer than, their ring fingers.) The idea is that prenatal testosterone levels influence digit ratio."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- amaccuish 8y agoCan confirm this works. Then again, I'm gay, so I'd be interested in the differences between straight and gay men.
- spiritcat 8y agoGay: If I buy this maybe he'll fsck me. (or straight with saleswoman.) Straight: If I don't buy this he'll fsck my woman.
- belorn 8y agoI am not sure how much social status aspects change with sexual orientation. Inter-sex competition over social status clearly has some connection with the ability to attract a mate (like any other species), but the trick of gaining social status through status symbols seems more bound to general culture.
- gaius 8y agoI am not sure how much social status aspects change with sexual orientation If you are curious, read about the sexuality of the ancient Greeks, which was inextricably bound up with social status. From Wikipaedia: Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behavior by the gender of the participants, but rather by the role that each participant played in the sex act, that of active penetrator or passive penetrated.[6] This active/passive polarization corresponded with dominant and submissive social roles: the active (penetrative) role was associated with masculinity, higher social status, and adulthood, while the passive role was associated with femininity, lower social status, and youth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greec...
- Lunatic666 8y agoFirst thing which came to my mind was #FitchTheHomeless - http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/fitchthehomeless-watch-viral-anti-abercrombie-video/241547 http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/fitchthehomeless-watc...
- fjsolwmv 8y agoI don't think A&F is the right name for this effect, because A&F intentionally sells products that fit big muscular guys, and tries to avoid selling products for and to small guys. (see the related comment about FitchTheHomeless). They don't want scrawny customers in public as brand mis-ambasssadors That's different from buying an expensive watch or couch or car because you feel inferior sized.
- learc83 8y agoIs that true? My younger brother who was very scrawny in High School had a wardrobe that consisted almost exclusively of A&F, and I don't remember any of the clothes looking ill-fitting. Looking through their website, the majority of their clothes seem to come in Extra Small and only go up to XL. Maybe their sizing is really off? The size guide didn't seem to be off from what plenty of other retailers are using though.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoFrom the article: the scientists looked at the ratio between ring and index finger, which is correlated with one’s level of testosterone. I wasn't aware of this. Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio That a greater proportion of men have shorter index fingers than ring fingers than do women was noted in the scientific literature several times through the late 1800s,[16][17] with the statistically significant sex difference in a sample of 201 men and 109 women established by 1930,[18] after which time the sex difference appears to have been largely forgotten or ignored.
- albertgoeswoof 8y agoAnyone got a link to the “research” cited in here? From the article it doesn’t seem like the most rigourous methodology, and I don’t see any p or n values listed. Honestly if this was actually true every male shop assistant working on commission would already be ripped because they would be selling double that of the scrawny ones, who would have been fired months ago.
- cirrus-clouds 8y agoHere is a PDF link to the research paper (hosted on the website of one of the authors of the study): https://nancyjsirianni.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/jmr_otterbring-ringler-sirianni-and-gustafsson.pdf https://nancyjsirianni.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/jmr_otter...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- peterclary 8y agoIn the case of female shoppers, the measured purchase patterns were exactly same, regardless of the amount of muscle at the entrance. On the other hand, male shoppers were clearly influenced.“ “This alone provides a valuable marketing insight. Women clearly don’t care that much about the employees’ physical appearance – from a shopping point of view, that is. Men are much more easily swayed.” To back that assertion, I would want to see the experiment repeated with female sales employees. In that situation, would women shoppers respond in a similar way to attractive and confident female employees as the men did to dominant male employees?
- tajen 8y agoAlso, A&F already attracts customers who are into bodybuilding, so I’m not surprised that customers are sensitive to muscular staff. The experiment should also be attempted in a non-fitness-oriented shop like H&M.
- Buldak 8y agoThis reminds me of the observation you often see that when men get into bodybuilding or grow their beards it's often not women, but other men, who seem most impressed.
- excalibur 8y agoThere seem to be a lot of uncontrolled variables here. This feels less like professional science, and more like a science fair project.
- ljm 8y agoResearch aside, isn't this intuitive? My sexuality doesn't come into the feeling I have when I go clothes shopping. If they've got guys wearing the merchandise and they look attractive and confident, I'm going to feel empowered by that - they look hot in those clothes and so I'm interested. I might even feel confident in myself because I've realised I can feel that for myself. The physique doesn't even matter, it's just the energy of it. If they hire a bunch of models who give off nothing more than anxiety and discomfort in themselves then my first thought isn't that they're making great clothes look good. I can't imagine that we as men have this different compared to women who shop for clothes. Attraction, sexuality, and aspiration is in your face at all times there. The main difference I see is that a man will rarely call another man attractive, as if the instant assumption is that admiring them makes you gay. Plenty of men out there who look and feel awesome without needing to challenge your heterosexuality.
- namanyayg 8y agoThe research presented in the article seems to be going against this intuition: the effect is only apparent when it's a physically dominating male; not necessarily physically attractive. > Note that physical dominance isn’t the same as physical attractiveness. While many high-status product categories have certainly embraced the latter for ages, it’s the tallness and muscularity what truly matters for the Abercrombie & Fitch effect to take place.
- chillacy 8y agoThe article doesn’t go as far as to make any explanations so I’ll drop what I think is happening: the tall masculine figure is making the targeted men insecure (the shorter, lower test level men) about their masculinity and they make up for it by buying luxury goods, which is an alternative expression of masculinity (think expensive whiskies and fine taste). It of course doesn’t affect women because they aren’t threatened, and it doesn’t affect men who are already physically masculine because they’re secure there. And now I wonder if you can run variations: 1. Have some well dressed guy in a suit lead underdressed buff guys buy clothing because they’re insecure about their appearance 2. Have skinny women lead more overweight women to buy health products that promote weight loss
- tvh 8y agoAgreed, this seems to be stemming from a fairly common compensation mechanism. I would be very interested in the results of the questions you bring up. I'd venture the result would be: 1. Yes 2. No
- bogomipz 8y agoIt's worth noting that the company endured years of flagging sales and stock price while employing this tactic. They somewhat recently made a concerted effort to move away from this image. And after doing so saw their numbers improve: >"While it once called its store front staff “models,” the company later announced in 2015 that it would no longer hire based on “body type or physical attractiveness.” [1] [1] http://fortune.com/2016/02/25/this-is-the-most-hated-retailer-in-the-u-s/ http://fortune.com/2016/02/25/this-is-the-most-hated-retaile...
- rubzah 8y agoI've only visited an A&F store once. The lighting was bizarrely low. It was like one of those 'horror house' rides at a crappy fair, with only the occasional dim spot on an exhibition of clothes. This extended to the dressing rooms. Is this general for A&F? If so no wonder they've been doing poorly.
- tzs 8y agoFrom the couple of pictures, the "dominant" men were a little taller than average, and fairly well muscled. I wonder what would happen if you went even more extreme, such as staffing the store with men who look like, both physically and in dress, as if they just stepped out of a "Tom of Finland" drawing? My guess is that if the gap between the salesman and the customer is much more than what the customer believes they realistically can achieve, the salesman will not be as effective as one who is more similar to the customer.
- ududhdjks 8y agoAka why males promote / hire / praise bullies.
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