Abercrombie claims it is because The Jersey Shore cast is harming their brand image………interesting……last year they were selling “Fituation” t-shirts. So, just 12 months before, they were selling shirts to support this man, now they want to pay him not to wear his clothes. It is hard for me to understand.

A&F have been dealing with employee lawsuits, for example, a lawsuit for requiring an employee with an aesthetic arm work in a stock room versus the store floor, minority class action law suits and job applicant law suits.  Might be good to divert the attention to these legal issues….

The advertisements parade young men, shirtless, tanned and in great shape. The stores pump cologne through the store and play extremely load music. Sounds a lot like “Jersey Shore” to me.

Let’s call it like it is, a clever way for A&F to get their name in front of people during the shopping season of ‘Back to School’.

Public Relations are key to any organization. This is a nice example of how not to be truthful in a PR stunt. The majority of the general population realize that this is just a publicity stunt for A&F. Even bad publicity is still publicity, we are all talking about it.

Well played A&F.

Jackie

Some are using platforms like Radian6 to engage in online communication and measure the feelings and perceptions surrounding their brand. Whether to better understand consumer behavior or develop a more relationship-orientated strategy, top brands acknowledge and embrace the influence consumers have over prospective publics.

Case in point: an airline that suffered an explosively public blow to its ego from a passenger’s Twitter uproar channeled the setback into an opportunity to build a mutually beneficial social media presence. Southwest Airlines has become a leader in listening and providing solutions to customer dissatisfaction while taking positive interactions to the next level. A corporate policy dedicated to how employees respond to customer inquiries online resulted in exponential growth to its Twitter and Facebook followings, 12 million monthly visits to its Website, and over 29,000 travel guide reviews.

Tried and true, you can’t make everyone happy. Rather than being afraid of what unsatisfied customers might post to your Facebook page, counter negativity with incentivized communication, enticing audiences to think twice before abandoning your brand. I recently joined Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program for several benefits, all of which were targeted to me with the right message in the right place at the right time.

Did you spot the grammatical error?

Since perfect grammar is a goal, not always a reality, we must ensure that the quest for perfection does not bind our hands and prevent us from delivering a message. A grammatical error is not as significant in social media because the platform enables us to correct the error immediately. Mistakes also provide an opportunity for people to compose an email comment that would make their fifth grade English teacher proud, when they correct you publically.

As marketers and perfectionists, we want to appeal to our entire audience and position ourselves as experts within our fields. Striving to use correct grammar strengthens personal brands and public perceptions of intelligence. Simply put, there is no good reason to turn people off of your message, just because you did not take the time to proofread.

YourDictionary.com covers five common grammatical mistakes and the corrections. Check out this list, and hopefully, get a few pointers. My advice is to strive for the best, quickly correct mistakes and make sure to deliver the message.

-Kelly (geekier than ever, in a good way)

Photo source: http://vaban.tumblr.com/

1. Contests or Sweepstakes
2. They are a current customer
3. Interesting or entertaining content.

Not only are current customers following or liking your brand, they are influencing their friends to also follow this brand. More than half of Facebook users are following 2-5 different brands every day. Take into consideration that there are more than 200 million active users…..and over 100 million users login at least once a day….For Twitter, 13 percent of the online US adults aged 18 and older use Twitter, up from eight percent in November 2010…..isn’t it time your brand considered social media? People want to get involved and interact with their favorite brands.

Wonder what the top brands are…

-Facebook
-YouTube
-Disney
-CocaCola
-Starbucks

Have you heard of these companies? It’s time to get on board!

-Jackie

http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2011/06/29/what-makes-people-follow-brands/?view=socialstudies

picture, compliments of:  rinehartrealty.com