Is it worth it?

3 July 2009

          
When crafting a brand, all marketers know that presentation matters. But how far is too far?
 

Fashion retailer Abercrombie and Fitch has hit the headlines recently after a former employee, who has a prosthetic arm, took it to an industrial tribunal, claiming discrimination.
 

The law student says the company relegated her to the storeroom out of public view because the cardigan she wore to cover her artificial arm did not fit the store's "look policy".

Abercrombie has never hidden its emphasis on looks; the role of sales assistant is described as “model”, the recruitment process as “casting”, and anyone brave enough to venture inside its only UK store will have encountered the student-cum-Chippendale style of the topless doormen, who pose to be photographed with all those seeking the reflected glory of the brand’s “sexy preppy-wear” image.
 

Elitism and sex can certainly enhance a brand’s value – a plain cotton polo shirt with the Abercrombie and Fitch symbol retails at £60, for example.
 

But who is really paying the price? While Abercrombie denies any wrongdoing, citing its strict anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy, the former employee is seeking £25,000 compensation for treatment, which she claims made her question her “worth as a human being”.
 

Meanwhile cosmetics giant L’Oréal, whose slogan is “Because you’re worth it”, has been found guilty of racial discrimination in France for excluding all non-whites from the sales staff promoting one of its haircare products.
 

The court found that the product’s representatives were required to be BBR – “bleu, blanc, rouge” –  an expression acknowledged in the French recruitment industry as code for white French people born to white French parents, in effect excluding the four million or so members of ethnic minorities in France.
 

Here’s where an emphasis on appearance really starts to get under the skin. L’Oréal has already been criticised for supposedly whitening-up the singer Beyonce’s skin colour in one of its campaigns. This latest ruling can do nothing to help its image in the public eye.
 

Nevertheless, the €30,000 fine that it received as a result seems little more than a slap on the wrist. For a multi-billion dollar company like L’Oréal, excluding all those who don’t exactly fit within your mould could end up seeming “worth it”.

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