View From the Phlipside Radio - Dissing the Sitch

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

I’ve said here before that I am NOT a fan of MTVs hit show “Jersey Shore”.  I find the people on the show to be utterly uninteresting and incredibly bad role models.  I’m not alone in disliking the show although it seems to break along age lines as much as anything else.  I know many, many young folks who love the show and lots of adults outside the under 30 age group who loathe it.  A lot of folks in New Jersey dislike the image of their state (which has enough image problems on the average day without MTV piling on) and a fair number of Italian Americans find the whole thing distasteful.  At the same time I can not deny the show is a hit.  Don’t ask me to explain it but I can’t deny it.

So then you have Abercrombie and Fitch who discover that one of the cast members, Mike Sorrentino better known as “The Situation”, favored thier clothes.  The clothing retailers are shooting for a certain kind of stylish cool and they weren’t sure that The Situation really had the look they were trying for no matter how well he pulled off the GTL routine (that’s Gym, Tan, Laundry for those of us outside the Jersey Shore demographic).  So they put out a PR release that said they would pay him NOT to wear their clothes.

Needless to say it got huge play in the media.  Commentaries right and left.  Jersey Shore fans defending their favorites, Abercrombie and Fitch fans defending their beloved brand.  MTV released a counter press release titled “Open Rebuttal To A Certain Clothing Retailer Who Dissed Our 'Sitch.'   “.  Does all of this sound like maybe A&F stepped into bigger hole than they expected?  Don’t believe it.  Execs with the store chain acknowledged they were having fun with the whole thing.

What’s really impressive in all of this is the pure marketing aspect  of it all.  Abercrombie and Fitch tied themselves to a hot media entity that hits their customer demographic perfectly while still maintaining that certain aloof, super cool persona for which they are known.  And how much it cost them?  Absolutely nothing.  They never paid The Situation a dime because they never really intended to do so.  Actually going through with it would have back fired.  

Gotta give Abercrombie and Fitch the nod.  They know cool.

Call that the View From the Phlipside