The old saw of “a stitch in time saves nine” (mending the tear before it goes any farther) was never more timely than in the brave new world of new media. Now, a 7-year-old soundbite can suddenly go viral and do damage to a brand within minutes.
Case in point, Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries’ less than diplomatic and arrogant 2006 shot heard round the world that “Candidly, we go after the cool kids…a lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
In addition, the retailer purposely doesn’t provide XL and XXL sizes in order to abide by his belief of the brand’s image.
Jeffries’ comment and store action has resulted in an online petition, video protests, and a viral letter demanding the brand accept more diverse body types.
In response, Mr. Jeffries whined that “This 7-year-old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context.”
Media Training 101 teaches CEO’s that the nature of media coverage is to distill a message into a soundbite and “take it out of context.” Therefore, the technique of crafting your messages in clear, concise, complete sentence quotable quotes is better for your brand than leaving it to the journalists’ interpretations.
Another basic media strategy is that the best defense is a good offense. It is far better to offer the positive than deny the negative. We would have coached Mr. Jeffries to address the questions with positive adjectives of Abercrombie & Fitch’s target market: physically active, sports minded, healthy, fun-loving, trendsetters vs. his being suckered into a discussion of who his brand excludes.