American Apparel - Branding and Advertising

Branding and Advertising

American Apparel designs, creates and prints its own advertisements. The company is known for its provocative and controversial advertising campaigns, which is largely the inspiration of the company CEO Dov Charney. According to Adage, American Apparel's advertising 'telegraphs the brand' from person to person Their print campaigns are widely considered to be some of the best in the industry. Online advertising has also been part of the company's ongoing media mix. The sexually charged advertising has been criticized, but has also been lauded for honesty and lack of airbrushing.

According to CEO Dov Charney, the vision for the brand is that of a “heritage brand. It's like liberty, property, pursuit of happiness for every man worldwide. That's my America."

American Apparel images often display subjects with their blemishes, imperfections and asymmetrical features highlighted and attached with brief, personal descriptions. Many of the models in American Apparel's advertising are recruited by Charney and his colleagues on the street, or company stores; others are selected after sending their photos directly to the company website. Despite this, many consumers have noted the relatively small sizing American Apparel employs, advising other shoppers to buy larger sizes than normal, though this may be the result of other retailers' use of vanity sizing to market to an overweight American public. Some critics have labeled their models as "cocaine-chic", and another describing them as "pre-pubescent".

For a time, Charney promoted a branding strategy that spotlighted his treatment of workers as a selling point for the company's merchandise, promoting American Apparel's goods as "sweatshop free." In 2008, the company took out a series of political ads featuring the corporate logo that called current immigration laws an "apartheid system." In regards to the company's image overseas, advisor Harry Parnass stated that the brand is about aspiration and that they are "selling the American dream." He dismissed competitors who do the same but refuse to manufacture in America.

The company has also used pornographic actors in some of its ads including Lauren Phoenix, Charlotte Stokely, Sasha Grey and Faye Reagan. Some of the company's other ads, which feature nudity or sexual themes, have been banned by various advertising authorities. Most recently, American Apparel agreed to comply with a UK ruling to not run an ad that appeared in VICE Magazine because it had the potential to "widely offend" people.

In 2005 the company was named "Marketer of the Year" at the first-ever LA Fashion Awards. Women's Wear Daily published a survey in April 2007 from Outlaw Consulting, a creative research firm tracking the habits of 21- to 27-year-olds, which ranked American Apparel as the 8th most trusted brand, ahead of such clothing brands as H&M and Levi's. In January 2008 the Intelligence Group, a trend and market research firm, listed American Apparel as their number two Top Trendsetting Brand, behind only Nike. In 2008, The Guardian named American Apparel "Label of the Year".

In 2007, Imp Kerr created a fake American Apparel ad campaign in New York. The stunt lasted almost a year, until it was revealed that the fake ads were actually Photoshop mockups. In a final twist, American Apparel ran a tribute ad on the back cover of Vice magazine showing a compilation of the fake ads.

American Apparel also briefly experimented with advertising in Second Life with a virtual store on the island named Lerappa but shuttered the operation in the fourth quarter of 2007