Do you also feel like a small part of you dies every time
you’re forced to walk by an Abercrombie and Fitch clothing store, with its
knock-off techno music blasting and its gaggle of white, blonde salesclerks
that look exactly like the teen and preteen models posing half-naked in the company's ads? (This resemblance, by the way, is slyly crafted: Abercrombie
encourages aspiring models to first work retail in their stores.) If so,
prepare to be slightly nauseated: a children’s hospital in Columbus, Ohio
has agreed to name its new emergency and trauma center Abercrombie and Fitch in
exchange for a $10 million donation from the company.
It was bad enough back in the 90s when one of the Boston area’s premiere music venues, evocatively named
Great Woods, became the Tweeter
Center. But naming a
stadium after a corporation—depressing as it is—is nothing compared to naming a
wing of a children’s hospital after one of the worst marketing predators for kids.
Just what, pray tell, does the above image have to do with clothing?
Perhaps I’m being uptight—I’m sure plenty of mature,
celibate teenagers shop at Abercrombie—but how many parents out there would
like their 10-year-old to own a thong emblazoned with the words “eye candy”? That’s only one example of numerous marketing techniques that have gotten
Abercrombie in trouble with children’s advocates over the years; it has also
been successfully sued for promoting a white-only image.
So, not surprisingly, a coalition of children’s advocates,
including pediatricians and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, have organized to pressure the Columbus Children’s Hospital to reconsider its
chumminess with Abercrombie. Happy as I am to support their campaign, I have to
be a realist: $10 million or a bunch of righteously indignant nonprofits? I’m
gonna bet the CEO of the hospital goes with the money. All that’s left for us
to little people to do is to avoid the store like the plague—not that that’s so
difficult….
Photo: Abercrombie.com
