Marketing

A&F – Attractive & Fat

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , , , , 784 Comments

How badass is this?

Jes over at The Militant Baker has posted the most gorgeous and smoldering retort to Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries.

In her letter she challenges A&F’s fat-hating and sexist business practices,

The only thing you’ve done through your comments (about thin being beautiful and only offering XL and XXL in your stores for men) is reinforce the unoriginal concept that fat women are social failures, valueless, and undesirable.

she comments on current marketing perspectives of beauty and attraction,

Never in our culture do we see sexy photo shoots that pair short, fat, unconventional models with not short, not fat, professional models. To put it in your words: “unpopular kids” with “cool kids”. It’s socially acceptable for same to be paired with same, but never are contrasting bodies positively mixed in the world of advertisement.

and then stars in a jaw-dropping, sultry, sexy photo shoot by Liora K Photography, shot in the style of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog and advertisements. You get one teaser here – for the rest, go visit the Militant Baker.

A&F

Jes in an embrace with model John C. Shay, giving the camera a dark glance as Shay lifts her chin towards him. This is one of many shots that shows off Jes’s tattooed, curvalicious bod. All of the displayed set is in black and white. Many of the other photos feature Jes wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt.

In the letter she explains her motivations for the project:

I didn’t take these pictures to show that the male model found me attractive, or that the photographer found me photogenic, or to prove that you’re an ostentatious dick. Rather, I was inspired by the opportunity to show that I am secure in my skin and to flaunt this by using the controversial platform that you created. I challenge the separation of attractive and fat, and I assert that they are compatible regardless of what you believe. Not only do I know that I’m sexy, but I also have the confidence to pose nude in ways you don’t dare.

To end the set, Jes gives Jeffries the bird, as so many of us have.

Hat tip to C. Brown on Facebook for the link to the Buzzfeed article about Jes’s blog.

A&F – Attractive & Fat
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My Coke Rewards Math

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , 592 Comments

I drink Diet Coke. I like the way it tastes and I like the carbonation. Recently I started drinking Diet Caffeine-Free Coke because I’m trying to cut back on the caffeine. And I’ll drink Pepsi, especially if it’s on sale. But the point is, I drink soda and when I do it’s usually Coke products.

A few years ago I took notice of this whole Coke Rewards program. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, inside the cap of every bottle of Coke, and inside the cardboard or plastic packaging of every case of Coke, there is a long alphanumeric code. If you sign up for a free account at mycokerewards.com you can enter these codes and get anywhere from 3-25 points per code. The codes add up and you can use them to buy things from the mycokerewards catalog, enter drawings for really big prizes, or donate the points to charity groups for their use.

I decided to start playing, and I became one of those crazy coworkers or friends who sees you drinking your soda and asks, “Can I have your cap when you’re done with your Coke?” I’ve also been known to troll the workplace birthday/ anniversary/ shower/ retirement parties for the empty Coke cases so I can get points there.

The way the entry system works is this: You can enter up to 120 points per week; the count resets every Monday. When you see something on the website that you want to buy, you simply click on it, mycokerewards.com deducts the points from  your account, and the prize is shipped to your address in 6-8 weeks. Items range in price from 3-2000 points.

 

Screen capture from mycokerewards.com – click image to follow to source.

Recently I purchased two 2-packs of AMC tickets plus popcorn and drinks. These cost me 1100 points each. I got to thinking about the math behind this, and was tickled by the numbers so I thought I’d share.

  • 12-pack of Coke costs ~$3.50 (more expensive some weeks, less expensive others).
  • 12-pack of Coke = 10 points
  • 120 points added per week
  • 1 prize of 2 AMC movie tickets ($20) plus 1 large popcorn and 2 large Cokes ($16.75) = 1100 points

So:

  • 1100 points / 10 points per 12-pack = 110 12-packs
  • $3.50 per 12-pack x110 12-packs = $385
  • And it takes me 1100 points / 120 points per week = 10 weeks to build up that many points if I have collected 120 points in a week, which I often don’t.

That’s a lot of Coke!

Coke gets their marketing – They know that I’m interested in their product over long periods of time because I continue to enter codes, they get to bombard me with advertisements when I visit the rewards website, and they get to track the kind of things I buy so they can better market to me in the future. In turn, I receive a free night at the movies with a friend. Like I said in the first paragraph, I drink the stuff anyway. I’m not buying Coke in order to collect points. I don’t buy more Coke than I would if there wasn’t a rewards program in place, and we still buy Pepsi if it’s cheaper than Coke on any given week. 

I participate in several loyalty programs besides the Coke Rewards. I’ve got a handful of those little keyfob cards on my keyring: Sally Beauty Club, SuperAmerica Speedy Rewards, PetCo P.A.L.S, PetSmart PetPerks, AMC Stubs. I feel like I get free stuff for using these cards at places that I go anyway, but is the cost of me giving these companies so much information and ways to sell me more stuff worth it in the long run?

How do you feel about perk/loyalty/reward programs?

My Coke Rewards Math

Nice ad, Macy’s!

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 520 Comments

Yay, Macy’s!  I was flipping through a Macy’s advertisement this morning – which I usually don’t do, but I was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, plus they had a kick-butt $10 off coupon on the front cover of the ad, so why not?

A few pages in I ran into a page dedicated to the clothing and accessories and saw this:

No, not the shoes – the beautiful, curvy, plus-size model in lingerie.  I thought, “Oh, I must have found the “women’s” section (read: the plus size clothes), but no!  There are no other lingerie or clothing ads in the pamphlet.  Macy’s chose to use a plus-size model as the only lingerie model in the entire ad, which is pretty awesome.

Maybe people are starting to figure out that not only can curves be sexy, but that it’s even okay to admit it!

Nice ad, Macy’s!

Nice ad, Macy's!

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 591 Comments

Yay, Macy’s!  I was flipping through a Macy’s advertisement this morning – which I usually don’t do, but I was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, plus they had a kick-butt $10 off coupon on the front cover of the ad, so why not?

A few pages in I ran into a page dedicated to the clothing and accessories and saw this:

No, not the shoes – the beautiful, curvy, plus-size model in lingerie.  I thought, “Oh, I must have found the “women’s” section (read: the plus size clothes), but no!  There are no other lingerie or clothing ads in the pamphlet.  Macy’s chose to use a plus-size model as the only lingerie model in the entire ad, which is pretty awesome.

Maybe people are starting to figure out that not only can curves be sexy, but that it’s even okay to admit it!

Nice ad, Macy's!

Men have fragile egos too?

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 1,180 Comments

Have you heard of vanity sizing?  It’s the gradual increase over time in how we define our clothing sizes.  Vanity sizing is a trick that clothing manufacturers play on consumers to make us feel better about the clothes we’re buying from them.  For example, they might make a size 10 skirt, but label it as size 8.

You’ve heard that Marilyn Monroe wore a size 14?  She was gorgeous and a size 14, so why should today’s size 14 gal worry about her waist?  A blog called True Life covered this topic in 2007:

Marilyn was a size 14…back in 1950.  Kate Dillon is still smokin’ hot (and I like the red hair, so I’d say hotter than Marilyn…and how can you not love that green swimsuit???) but her 14 is not Marilyn’s 14.

Vanity sizing is the reason why you may prefer Old Navy jeans to Gap jeans or Target jeans, or vice versa.  It’s the reason why you may have to buy boutique-style clothing two sizes “bigger” than ready-to-wear off-the rack clothes.

It’s sneaky, and we let them do it, because we’re vain.

And I’ll be honest – I thought it was something they only did to women.

Let’s look at women’s clothing sizes: 00, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 and so on.  Those “sizes” don’t mean anything – a size 10 jean doesn’t mean one has a 10-inch waist.  Then there’s the ridiculous S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL size chart – pretty subjective.  Some plus size clothing manufacturers  have even tried to eliminate the standard prejudices associated with the previous two systems and use vague 1, 2, 3, 4 designations for clothing – especially clothing that would normally fall into the XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL system like shirts and dresses, or other other clothes that can adjust via belts, ties, adjustable straps, or *shudder* elastic.

Since the scales (hehehe) are subjective, I can understand how there’s some fudge factor room in creating women’s clothing in one size and calling it a smaller size.  You convince a woman that your store’s size 14 fits here, and if she goes to another store (that doesn’t vanity size as much) she’ll have to buy a size 16.  Ugh!  I would rather wear the 14 if given the choice!

Men’s clothing is more standardized.  A 32″ waist means the waist measures 32″ around.  There’s not a lot a room to maneuver here.

Unless they just…lie.

Esquire Magazine’s “The Style Blog” published an article by Adam Sauer yesterday about vanity sizing – or “down-waisting” – of men’s clothing.  On a recent shopping trip he carried along a tailor’s measuring tape and got the skinny (yes! pun-ilicious) on some big (ooops, I did it again! mwah ha ha!) names:

Sorry guys.

Men have fragile egos too?