Fashion Notebook

Lessons in Branding: Why the Woody Allen Vs. American Apparel Case Is Actually Kind of Funny

If you hadn't heard already, director Woody Allen is suing
American Apparel for $10 million, for using his image,
without permission, in one of its outdoor campaigns in May 2007.

The campaign features a photo of Allen, dressed as a Jewish rabbi in his 1977 Academy Award winning film Annie Hall, beside Hebrew script that translates to "The Holy Rebbe." (See photo, right.)

While the lawsuit is certainly interesting—or maybe not really, we find legalese to be somewhat tiresome and who isn't suing anyone else these days?—the whole situation has us kind of perplexed, then chortling, then perplexed again.

So first, you take an ego-maniac like Allen (Full disclosure: we love Allen's work; Annie Hall makes our top 10 movies of all time, though our boyfriend pulled a gifting gaff for our last anniversary by getting Manhattan, still a good movie, but it no Annie, and, for the record, we don't care if it's the deluxe edition and we once mentioned it was "our real favorite Allen movie."), and you use him in branding that doesn't, well, directly promote him and his work.

We need to note here that Allen has found a way to finagle himself into nearly all of his movie scripts, and, in the aforementioned was, indeed the main character, so this guy is no stranger to an über-level of self-promo. So we have to imagine that Allen's real beef here not that there's a promotional image of himself out there, but rather than the said image isn't promoting him in a way that he totally controls. That's totally fair, and who would want their mug on an American Apparel ad, especially without their permission? (Though some of our friends have appeared in the ads, with their all-too-eager permission.)

According to press reports concerning the lawsuit, the case argues that the use of Allen's image in the billboards in Hollywood and New York were "especially egregious and damaging," and that Allen does not endorse products or services in the United States. Hmmm... We can think of a couple things Allen has done to himself that were more "egregious and damaging" than a few billboards with a still from one of his movies, but we'll get to that later. 

Second, you take a company that has made its name with 1970s porn-style ads that feature either moist looking hipsters or their rather sleazy looking bearded brethren. We're all for it, and love the gay-themed advertisements that they've done in publications like BUTT (anyone remember those "Bottoms...And Tops" spots?!, WARNING: NSFW. A tamer spot is pictured, below, left.), but, in the end, it's just kind of an edgy sex-sells play for the apparel company, you know, with a little vintage sleaze thrown in for good measure.

This oddly brings us back to Allen, someone who's rather a 1970s vintage cartoon character, who scandalized himself with what some would call a sleazy, sexual relationship with Soon Yi, the adopted daughter of Allen's former flame, Mia Farrow. So we kind of see the relevance from a marketing standpoint. In fact, in response to a query from The Jewish Daily Forward, American Apparel rep defined Allen as the brand's "spiritual leader." And if you think about it, it's kind of dead on. Better in the 1970s, sexually provocative, somewhat over-thought and overwrought (thinking lamé swimsuits and Celebrity), well these concepts all seem to define both the American Apparel and Woody Allen "brands."

Anyhow, we're not so impressed by the outdoor ads, but they sure got a lot of attention, so perhaps this whole weird mélange is worth its weight in branding gold. Still, wouldn't something it have been cooler if AA had superimposed Allen's face on one of their own hipster-hot models? Like this. So what's the lesson here folks? Well, it remains to be seen if these ads and the lawsuit move the needle any for American Apparel (as if they need it, the stores around here are always hopping with pretty, and some not-so-pretty, young things) and if that movement outweighs any legal costs, but if so, the lesson seems to be find someone both scandalous and (considered) brilliant in their field, someone who kind of relates to your own brand values, and then slap their image up on your billboards. Without all the hassle of asking.

We're not in favor of breaking the laws, per se, or abusing someone else's likeness, but do marketers really care about such meddling things as this, you know, provided it's still selling products?

Also, it's not like American Apparel hasn't ever been on the receiving end of image misappropriation issues, but for them, it actually turned out to be kind of a good thing. They were one of the faux sponsors in a Youtube spoof dubbed "The Hipster Olympics," in which contestants from Williamsburg, Brooklyn (our nabe, coincidentally, so the satire here does sting a bit) snort cocaine to get in the game, take MySpace photos, pick out ironic album covers, and dis normals.

When we asked what they thought about it, American Apparel director of corporate finance and development Adrian Kowalewski told us that since the spot wasn't "grossly defamatory" it wasn't such a big deal.

"It's quite flattering to us that our marketing would inspire someone to do a mock ad," Kowalewski added. "We think this is a reflection of how impactful our advertising has been to our audience."

So c'mon Woody, what's the big deal, man? Can't we all just, like, brand along? Anyways, I'll let you readers sort it out.

Check out the "Hipster Olympics" video, below.

Lessons in Branding: Members Only Reexamines the Lookbook

Normally, lookbooks are the run-of-the-mill press materials that you  throw into a trusty bin (or, in our case, an unused aluminum beer cooler) and forget about until you need to do a trend report or look up the name of a garment that appeared in an ad.

Spiral bound, velo-bound, perfect bound, matte, natural or glossy, they're all pretty much the same. Which is why this one from Members Only—that brand you wore in the early the 80s, when we were still drooling and incoherent (it wasn't the cocaine honey, we were babies!!)—caught our eye.

It's done up as a scandalous spread from US Weekly or Life & Style or Star (whichever you like best), with the product previewed throughout the shoot and called out in caption boxes.

This approach works for two reasons:

1. It gets the attention of editors and industry types who normally have to sift through a bunch of crap from countless companies. We're not used to seeing this kind of stuff, so at the very least, it gets us to spend an extra few seconds (crucial!) looking through the materials before chucking it into the aforementioned trusty bin.

2. It lays out the looks in a lifestyle manner, practically doing the work (though none will admit so) of the stylist his/herself. Essentially, it gives us an idea of how the clothes would look in real life and suggests some styling options that seem viable.

But that's not to say that there aren't a few drawbacks to this more inventive format, chiefly that it's not necessarily very user friendly. For instance, it's not easy to flip through this for reference. The format requires the editor's eye to  jump to all manner of text boxes, which is detrimental for those editors trying to pull together a trend report or merely browse product to see what would be appropriate for an upcoming shoot. With the lookbook, utility cannot be underestimated.

Also, this male model is hideous. I mean, they're not all to our taste, and that's cool, but we're just not feeling this guy (and we LOVE skinny hipster guys). Also, "Poppi" was the best name they could come up with for the girl? Finally, the models appear to have like zero chemistry, which actually makes looking through the spreads all the more interesting, even if it's because we're laughing at the "Make Me a Supermodel" antics.

Still, it's a refreshing take on an industry standard that actually got us to take a look, and, well, write about it. Check out one of the spreads from the book, below. (Click to enlarge) 

Lessons in Branding: A Night Out with Ben Sherman

Having attended many fashion parties that were no more
than an excuse to down a bunch of free drinks before going
out for your real night on the town, we must admit that most of them are throw-aways, except in the rare instance that they shed some light on some real branding work.

While such is by far the rarest of breed in the Fashion Week party line up, Ben Sherman's party Friday night at the brand's Soho flagship proved to be a rumination on the execution of a rebranding, if not a somewhat nostalgic trip down memory lane for us (pictures left, via LastNightsParty.com).

If you haven't checked in with Ben Sherman in a while you should, because it's likely very different than you remember. The U.S. vp-marketing, Dana Dynamite has been working to give the brand some serious hipster cred, starting out  first with a MySpace site several years ago (one of the first to jump on that now über-popular chuck wagon) and extending relationships with a series of downtown New York nightlife's more  prominent partiers (and all too often, party promoters by default... hey, even hipsters gotta eat!).

Most recently, the brand inked a partnership with Merlin Bronques, a downtown scene photographer á la, but predating MisShapes (R.I.P.) and The Cobra Snake (we're fairly sure about this, facts about these guys are usually anecdotal at best) as well as newcomers like Nicky Digital (if you don't know these names, you're either over 35 years old or need to seriously re-read your Hipster Handbook). Bronques produced a series of stills—in k eeping with his hipster verité styles—of downtown's denizens that were used for a Christmas OOH campaign here in New York.  Alongside Bronques came a slew of other night-lifers, such as the DJ/comic (huh?) Mike Nouveau (who's really a web marketing and ad sales guy for Paper, and prior to that held similar duties over at Rolling Stone, pictured, left, with friends) and DJ Jess (the skinny, seemingly sexually ambidextrous DJ who used to, and perhaps still does, spin at Rififfi, where you can expect to hear "Kids in America" and "Common People" about 1.75 times each hour).

So, at the party, it all became clear how these kids—we have to laugh here a little bit, since we've seen them evolve over the past four years from awkward kids our friends used to hook up with to something of legitimate (?) nightlife figures, and speaking of Merlin, why did you lose the wig!!??—have been perfectly deployed to revamp this aged British apparel brand both on and offline (they all promote each other via MySpace pages).

The party was thronged with young kids (check out all the images, here.), which isn't such a surprising thing at fashion events, particularly during Fashion Week. But it was thronged with the kinds of people that we recognize, obviously a direct appeal to young twentysomethings who make the rounds at various clubs decked out in DIY and bargain fashions. The walls were splattered with images from the current campaign, and the room packed with a bunch of young, mod-ish looking pretties that posed for Bronques' pictures. (Though due diligence requires us to report that there were some aging club queens out as well, but that's par for the course around downtown NYC. It wouldn't feel like home without them.)

And while our friend did note that the new outdoor campaign looked like "American Apparel Lite" (which, to be fair, is, itself pretty much "1970s-Era Gym Porn Lite"), Ben Sherman was effectively communicating its new message. After being off of our radar for years, Ben Sherman suddenly felt hip. And the product wasn't—particularly the party dresses—bad either.

And it's not just our musings either. Agyness Deyn, that pixie-faced model you've been seeing in nearly everyone's campaigns this year, popped into the party, wearing some super high shouldered blue jacket and with a mini-entourage of bottle blonds in tow.  That  surely says something, whether she was comp'ed  for the night or not. Though I'm starting to worry about Agyness as a brand spokesperson—seems she's been a bit of the village bicycle lately and while we love her look, we have to wonder how much Agyness we'll have to see before we get fatigue and move on.

And speaking of moving on, while we love the 1980s, I think it's time we stopped LITERALLY reinterpreting the decadent decade. Seriously, there's a way to pull off hip without being a literal reproduction of a Salt N' Peppa album cover. Cheap, clunky gold chain and patent purses were always passé people!