Abercrombie and Fitch Case

Abercrombie & Fitch Case
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Abercrombie & Fitch Case
The decision by Abercrombie & Fitch to have prints that could be considered offensive or discriminating to some members of the population was certainly a mistake that was bound to hit the company hard. The t-shirt prints seemingly targeted teenagers of particular body complexion. Bearing in mind that the largest market share for its products were the teens, the company was certain to face some backlash. A teenage group from the Women and Girl Foundation reacted to Abercrombie & Fitch's decision on its product by declaring a massive protest encouraging their peers not to do business with the company, using the available means to reach out to the largest audience possible. The girls' move impacted Abercrombie & Fitch that forced it to respond as quickly as possible. Although the company was quick to respond to the crisis, they had failed to foresee the crisis adequately, signifying a massive breakdown in their public relations strategies that would have anticipated the backlash in advance and even devise strategies to overcome the crisis with minimum damage possible through crisis prevention and crisis management.
Crisis Prevention
Public relations aims at building a positive relationship between the company and its major stakeholders. A company can employ numerous strategies to influence the stakeholders' beliefs, opinions, and behaviors. Public relation entails numerous facets, and one core aspect of public relations is crisis prevention. Crisis prevention is a public relations specialty employed by the PR team to protect the organization, individuals, and the stakeholders associated with the organization from facing challenges that can be detrimental to the brand image, the customer's behavior, and perception of the company. Abercrombie & Fitch should have adopted some measures to help prevent the crisis that befell the company following the t-shirt prints that appeared discriminating and offensive to some sections of girls and women.
Communicate with Stakeholders
One of the major functions of the public relations teams is to act as a point of contact between the company and the key stakeholders, including the customers. To avert the impending crisis, Abercrombie & Fitch should have established a team that will engage the key stakeholders, the primary customers, to obtain their opinion regarding the products. Engaging the consumers can be a resource-intensive activity, and the company should be willing to invest resources, time, talent, and even planning to get the most of the information gathering exercise from the stakeholders. The information gathered from the stakeholders can then be carefully analyzed, with the help of experts in analysis and public relations, to reach an amicable resolution regarding the move, which would either be to drop the product, go ahead as planned, or make some changes to the initial plan. Engaging the customers before the product release enables the PR team to get useful feedback and enhances customer relationships, preventing the crisis beforehand.
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