Controversy Quarterly: For as long as there has been a rexblog, there have been posts (and here and few more here) about boycotts threatened against Abercrombie & Fitch each time it publishes another issue of its customer magazine (magalog?), A&F Quarterly. While I do not necessarily condone the magazine’s content (they keep selling out before I can purchase one to “review”), I contend it is the benchmark for how to use a custom magazine to define and build a brand. They are even able to generate priceless publicity from the “anti-hip” establishment that must go a long way to let their suburban mall-rat audience know that something must be cool about shopping there.
Well, it appears their opponents have finally won a round with them as the NY Post reports the current issue has been pulled from circulation. However, to understand the real value of such a boycott, merely compare the $4 cover price to the eBay market price on a “banned” copy.
I marvel at two things about this: Abercrombie’s duplcitious and taunting (yet brilliantly executed) approach to marketing and their opponent’s unwitting and recurring participation in the scheme.
True brilliance would have been to somehow include FoxNews and Bill O’Really.