The Ethics of Abercrombie and Fitch - Research Proposal Example

The Ethics of Abercrombie and Fitch: A Critical Analysis BY Introduction Business ethics is not a private matter but a broad societal issue that needs careful attention. Unlike ever before, today ‘what is right and what is wrong’ in business depends on organisational decisions. Normally every organisation has a code of ethics, the basic principles of conduct, which individuals including managers, staff, employees, and shareholders are to follow in order to accomplish the business objectives and to ensure the betterment of the community and company’s Human Resource as a whole. Evidently, business ethics is not about legal compliance, but it involves careful assessment of prevailing situations and consequences. Code of ethics will not change according to the firm’s natural and technological environment change. In other words, business ethics always inspires organisations to do what is right rather than what is appropriate to the situation. It is important for a business firm to evaluate if it follows any unethical business behaviour that can adversely affect its brand reputation and customer loyalty. This paper will analyze the marketing strategies and business behaviour of Abercrombie and Fitch (A&F) in terms of ethics in order to determine to what extent their approach influences the relationship between ethical issues and consumer behaviour. Aims and objectives The first objective of this paper is to research about Abercrombie and Fitch (A&F) so as to evaluate whether there is any controversial business behaviour or strategy in terms of ethics. Such an understanding is essential to identify how this controversy influences the long-term sustainability of the business. The second objective of this research work is to discover which of the business behaviours and strategies are discriminative to customers. When the business management is really informed of the discriminative behaviours and strategies to the audience, they can address the issue effectively and regain consumer trust. The third objective of this research is to identify the relationship between ethical issues and consumer behaviour. If it is identified that ethical issues affect consumer behaviour negatively, then the A&F should abandon its ethically controversial marketing practices. Research Methodology The key characteristics of A&F shop in London were closely observed to obtain a clear picture of the business organisation. This data was obtained from news reports, market research studies, industry analysis reports, and previous research studies. In order to obtain information on behaviours and strategies that A&F adopted in recent years, I conducted an online research. Since the issue discussed in this project has a cultural perspective, gender and nationality based interviews were conducted to collect people’s opinions on the A&F’s behaviours and strategies. These interviews were really helpful to understand how people from different national cultures and gender groups perceive the firm’s behaviours and strategies. The data collected from observation, news articles, online research, and interviews were accumulated and then critically compared to support the findings of this paper. Hence, a comprehensive research methodology has been adopted here to justify the credibility of the data presented and to ensure that the findings are free from biases and errors. Overview of the Scenario Abercrombie and Fitch (A&F) was founded by David T Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch in the New York City in 1892. By the end of the 1980s, A&F became a reputed fashion brand that sold a broad line of clothes to young people. On the strength of its innovative marketing ideas, A&F became one of the prominent brands in the fashion industry. Although the firm’s creative marketing ideas and strategies gained attention worldwide, those approaches were also criticized for employing unethical marketing methods. Mike Jeffries, the current CEO of A&F, recently said in interview that the company wants to market to cool, good looking people and it does not want to market to anyone other than that. In addition, the company followed some ethically wrong marketing strategies like promoting sexualization to pre-teen girls so as to influence their age peculiarities. Despite all these criticisms and negative feedbacks, A&F has been operating successfully over the years with a plenty of loyal customers. The company has still a great influence on teenagers. Literature Review Traditionally, consumer behaviour has been a crucial element determining the sales and profits of a corporation because consumer behaviour is directly linked to the quantity of commodities purchased. In order to identify how business ethics influences consumer behaviour, it is vital to evaluate the social and cultural factors affecting consumer behaviour. According to Sethi and Chawla (2014), the social factors influencing consumer behaviour include reference groups, immediate family members, relatives, role in the society, and status in the society. The authors add that reference groups may comprise friends, family members, relatives, and co-workers. It is clear that A&F markets their clothes mainly to teenagers and young people, whose behaviour is greatly influenced by friends. Young people always tend to pursue latest fashion trends and generally they pay less attention to the ethics of business behaviour and marketing strategies if the fashion brand is able to meet their needs. Even socially responsible youngsters may be influenced by their friends and colleagues who prioritize fashion above ethical standards. Another important point is that teenagers would accept fashion trends that may be perceived as vulgar or unacceptable by other members of the society. While analyzing the role and status of teenagers in the society, it is clear that they just try to be the focal point of others through their dressing and lifestyle changes. Philip Kotler says that cultural factors including religion, ethnicity, and gender can have a great influence on consumer behaviour. The author states that “culture is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and behaviour” (Kotler 2010, p.117). This is the reason why A&F marketed their product lines aggressively to teenage girls through encouraging sexualization. The organisation clearly recognized that teenage girls are increasingly sensitive to latest fashion trends and they want to be attracted by their male peers. Hence, the firm excluded bigger sizes of clothes in their product lines. By adopting negative marketing strategies, A&F management tried to influence teenagers psychologically and the company fairly succeeded in its attempt. Therefore, the company managed to maintain its sales and profits despite a lot of negative comments on its behaviour and strategies. The Business Behaviour In order to evaluate whether the firm’s behaviours or strategies involved an element of ethical controversy, it is necessary to determine what constitutes ethics of individuals. The ethical righteousness of an act or conduct may vary from individual to individual. To be more precise, an act that is ethically wrong in the view of an individual may be ethically acceptable to another. In this perspective, the business behaviour and marketing strategies of the A&F may not be acceptable to people who hold conservative views. They will strongly oppose the firm’s activities like promoting sexualization to pre-teen girls and excluding bigger sizes of clothes in their product lines. Those people believe that the firm’s business model is worse that it may pass a wrong message to the young population and this in turn would lead to the deterioration of basic social values. The general perception of the society is that promoting sexualization would lead to serious social issues like sexual molestations, teen pregnancy, and sexual promiscuity. However, the company holds the belief that it only tries to meet the fashion tastes and preferences of teenage people. In the trial for moving forward with the exclusiveness of marketing, A&F has devised a business behaviour which ignores the socio-cultural standardization norms. The company has focused the teen generation which is vulnerable to the trend-setting attitude. This focus has gained a remarkable brand value for the A&F products across it retail outlets until the CEO’s controversial comments about the customers. For the critiques of the marketing industry and strategists, the comment appeared like a challenge of the customer dignity because of the objectification of females and adolescent girls (Abercrombie and Fitch Suffers From "Fat" Comments, 2013). From the point of a near-destruction at the retail marketing segment, the company revived with new pricing policies and with apologies to the customers. This model of business behaviour reflects the individualism in the economic sector which keeps a company special from its competitors. Despite the concerns about the company’s performance after the CEO-led ethical conflicts, there is hope that A&F will be regaining its position by keeping the business profitable without compromising the standards of image and pricing. Discriminative Behaviours and Strategies The business history of Abercrombie and Fitch is not a promising model for new entrants of retail apparel traders; however, the company’s marketing strategies after its renaissance have seen a tremendous progress in its market share. The company’s high intense focus on promoting brand value has created a wide range debate among the marketing experts who connect the A&F’s business behaviour with the ethical implications of its advertisements on the public. The company has doubtlessly positioned itself in the retail casual wear market as an unchallenged branch over its hundred plus years of existence and claimed the authority to price its products irrespective of the market trends. However, the target customers are the young generation who are vulnerable to the changing trends and are thus easy goals of various products other than clothes. Keeping a close watch of the youth trend is the most basic requirement for sustained business share in a competitive market. The company’s CEO Michael Jeffries’ dubious distinction of not being a value-based business man has drawn the critical perceptions of the consumers. In order to control the customer beliefs and for gaining trust, companies adopt a number of methods. Keeping a higher price brand has been the strategy of the company to keep its image at an unattainable height. However, this is a discriminative behaviour which draws the critical attention of economic experts and sociologists. As Emmanuel Kant suggests, the fundamental principle of humanity concerned with the business organisations is about giving value to people on a uniform scale (Abercrombie and Fitch Suffers From "Fat" Comments, 2013). However, A&F exhibits a more narrowly configured behaviour that draws a border between customer classes based not only on their wealth but their physical appearance. Whether or not the company gains from this controversial approach, the adamant strategy of keeping the commoners and unsuitable customers at bay is something that draws the focus of advocates of business ethics. The particular position of the A&F management is an interesting model for marketing experts because of the resources it gives for a strategic bargain over the business virtue. From the observation of the company’s recent strategic approaches, it becomes clear that the owners are highly enthusiastic about maintaining the brand image rather than making profit. Relationship between Ethical Issues and Consumer Behaviour There is a strong relationship between social obligations and the organisational image. The firms that keep value for ethics gains public trust which results in the profitable position in the market. This proposition is a general phenomenon for the corporate business units across the world. For the CEO of A&F, it was too costly to touch the public sentiments about their personal clothing choices. After Jeffries declared his discriminative stance about the target customers, the shock waves keep hitting the company’s response in the outlets across the United States. The reports reveal that the company’s performance has taken a nosedive for a few consecutive weeks after the CEO’s contentious remarks about the expectations he had about the customers (Bradford, 2013). The peculiar attitude of the management of A&F shows the arrogance of the economic individualism; however, the pitfalls at critical times become devastating for most companies. While America is has a population facing the biggest challenge of obesity, the comments inciting sexualism and discrimination will doubtlessly bring harm to the business. Abercrombie and Fitch has never been on the path of an ethical valuation to the customers and the business world as a whole. That is why it has not expanded the clothing sizes for women despite the fact that most of the people who became fat were former customers of the A&F products (Candace, 2013). Besides this, the company hails the notorious identity of going for ‘just good looks’ among the customers as well as its employees. This tendency of the sellers will definitely affect the consumer behaviour in a negative way and the potential upper class, who are subjected to discrimination will opt substitute products. However, the ongoing exhibition of the responses to the ethical concerns still point out that such a one-comment-all-collapse situation cannot control the attitude of the A&F management. The company has always focused on the capitalization of the advertising strategies without giving concern for the ethical values. As a matter of fact, right from the mid-twentieth century itself, advertisements covering the sex appeal have greatly influenced the American population (Claire, 2005). However, the unethical objectification of adolescents and women has caused great damage to the company’s image among the adult population, particularly after the unfortunate interview of the CEO. Even though such arrogance can create sensations and draw public attention as a part of strategy, it impact in the long run will be matter for greater concern with regards to gaining the brand reputation. Recommendations Ethics as a subject is entirely different from other disciplines mainly because it does not constitute a matter of factual knowledge. Also, the modern world in the context of globalization has formed its own new ethical parameters according to which the actions of individuals and organisations are judged. The above discussion clearly points to the need of a change in AF’s marketing strategies. Although the current controversial promotional methods of the firm have not affected the consumer behaviour to a great extent, the same is not recommendable for a long term due to various reasons. Although the firm has been retaining its customers for years, an unrespectable shift is likely once the issue involves sensitive matters like teenage sexualization. It is true that human health and long term environmental sustainability have become the most important concerns of organisational ethics today. However, the ethical obligations of business firms extend over other issues like corporate social responsibility, overall welfare of the humanity, and the right and ethical use of science and technology for the wellbeing of the general public. When it comes to the case of A & F, their current marketing strategies are not in line with many of the above mentioned ethical norms. The business stability it maintains is of short term effect, and this highly depends on teenage fondness. The same marketing tactics may not appeal aged populations as the firms’ promotional campaigns involve certain elements which are not socially well accepted. Hence, it is recommendable for A & F to revisit its marketing strategies to address the ethical concerns of wider customer segments. It would be unwise for a firm to blindly rely on teenage group which is highly vulnerable to unpredictable fashion changes or paradigm shifts. As mentioned already, this is not simply a matter of business stability, but it reflects an organisation’s moral responsibility to the community it serves. Good status in terms of business revenue does not necessarily indicate that a firm is heading towards success. Business success is a broad term the extent of which is determined on the basis of several tangible and intangible factors in organisational management. Conclusion The research altogether attempts to find out if business behaviour or strategy in terms of ethics influences business sustainability and customer trust. In order to answer this question, the controversy Abercrombie and Fitch marketing was taken as a model. The case analysis shows that it involves controversial business behaviour or strategy in terms of ethics and it tends to influence the long-term sustainability of the business adversely. The research identifies teenage sexualization as the business behaviours discriminative to customers. In this context, it is advisable for A & F management to reconsider its discriminative behaviours and strategies so that they can address the issue effectively and maintain consumer trust. Since practical evidences and theoretical positions clearly identify that ethical issues can affect consumer behaviour negatively, A&F should abandon its ethically controversial marketing practices. References “Abercrombie and Fitch suffer from the ‘fat’ comments.” (2013) Business Ethics Case Analyses. Available at; http://businessethicscases.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/abercrombie-and-fitch-suffers-from-fat.html Bradford H (2013) "Abercrombie & Fitchs Reputation Takes A Hit After CEOs Fat Comments Resurface [CHART]." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/abercrombie-reputation-ceo-comments_n_3288836.html Candace B (2013) “The Shoddy Ethics of Abercrombie and Fitch”. Truth is Cool, available at: http://truthiscool.com/the-shoddy-ethics-of-abercrombie-and-fitch Claire ED (2005) “Message Communication in Advertising: Selling the Abercrombie and Fitch image”. Available at: http://www.uwlax.edu/urc/JUR-online/PDF/2005/driessen.pdf Kotler, P (2010) Principles Of Marketing: A South Asian Perspective. Pearson Education India. Sethi I & Chawla AS (2014) Influence of Cultural, Social and Marketing Factors on the Buying Behaviour of Telecom Users: A Comparative Study of Rural, Semi-Urban and Urban Areas in and Around Chandigarh. Journal of Marketing Management 2 (1): 97-110. Read More