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Recommended: what the effect of advertisement on consumer behavior

How can an ad increase sales by 10% even though it does not name the brand and does not show a sample of what they sell? Its because of the power of youth culture, and a little bit of skilled media persuasion. The ad I chose to bust is an ad by Abercrombie and Fitch, the large american clothing retailer. In the specific ad I chose, the name “Abercrombie and Fitch” is barely noticeable and you can hardly see the clothing they are selling, yet when I grew up Abercrombie was a retail monster and influenced my life drastically.
The reason I chose this as was because of the impact it had on my life growing up. In elementary school, I went to a school which supported social hierarchies, meaning there were popular girls and boys and there were not so popular students. I was one of the not so popular girls. Because of this I was tormented. I was perplexed by what made the popular girls so popular. It was not their hair, their smarts or their personalities it was the fact that they wore Abercrombie. Abercrombie prides itself on only selling clothing to cool people. In fact the CEO, has bluntly stated that his company does this. The way Abercrombie does this is through their media and store environment. As an uncool girl I felt ashamed every time I would walk past Abercrombie, knowing that inside there was only more cool girls waiting to shame me. I believe this was what many students felt. I chose this specific ad because I remember it vividly from when I was in grade five. As I see it years later I cannot feel anything but desire. I still have the desire to fit in even though I am at a new school with new friends. I talked to other “uncool” girls from grade five and they shared the same feelings. In my opinion, Abercrombie h...

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...crombie. The viewer will then think if I wear Abercrombie other cool kids that wear Abercrombie will be drawn to me. The final method of persuasion is beautiful people. Each model in the ad would be considered beautiful by North American culture. Abercrombie states that it looks for the “all american type model who can have a great time in their clothing”. By all american they mean thin, blonde, and tall. This is ironic because many actual american people do not have these attributes. By using beautiful people the ad implies that when wearing these clothing regular girls and boys can also be beautiful, just like the models.
In conclusion, it was interesting finding an ad that I was so passionate about and really realizing the effects it had on my childhood. In many ways I can attribute who I am today because of Abercrombie and Fitch.

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