Hey bro, pay me!When you think Abercrombie & Fitch, you think The Situation from The Jersey Shore. Well, A&F wants you to stop thinking that. In a publicity stunt, the company put out a statement promising to pay The Situation and the rest of the cast to stop wearing the A&F brand.
“We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans,” the statement read.
If you made a venn diagram of people who wear A&F and people who like The Jersey Shore, there would be a significant d-baggy overlap.
About 45 minutes into the A&F quarterly earnings call Wednesday morning, after Wall Street analysts peppered executives with endless questions about inventory and gross margins, A&F Chief Executive Mike Jeffries chuckled. “Is no one going to ask about the Situation?” he said.
A few minutes later, a questioner acquiesced and asked for the back story on the situation, as it were. Last Friday, an employee approached Mr. Jeffries with what he called “terrible, terrible news” that Mr. Sorrentino had been wearing A&F product on the episode that aired the night before. “We all said, ‘Oh, that’s terrible’,” Mr. Jeffries recalled with a groan. “What are we going to do about it?”
The solution the group came up with was to pay the reality star not to wear the product, Mr. Jeffries said, adding, “We’re having a lot of fun with it.”
*Sniffs the air* I can smell the desperation from here. It smells like gym socks, spray tan and unwashed laundry.
