Cohen is right in his theories that when you have good-looking people, you can sell more of what they model. He calls it a “walking Billboard” . An advertisement in itself that seems to work well. Large company’s in the fashion industry want to increase profit and make as much money as possible, by any means possible. This is just one way of enticing a customer to purchase more products. I agree with Cohen on these brand enhancers.
To be honest, I don’t think it’s wrong, the CEO’s and people in power should decide what they want for the company, and whats best for the company financially. It can be discrimination, but the company is still giving out jobs to people, and there are still other places such as Wal-mart that hire based off of records. The people who work for these stores are usually are young so i guess it’s good that the youth is getting jobs.
Cohen said that “A guy wants to go to a store where he can where he can see good-looking gals”. This relates to this so much more than just fashion chain’s and goes deep into history. People use attractive females to attract men and vice-versa. I think alcohol is sold this way quite often, using the opposite sex. Cloths are related in this sense as a way of turning men's and women's minds to a different set. A man is more likely to go shopping at a store full of supermodels rather than regular looking people. I'm not trying to discriminate though, by saying good looking and regular looking people, i just mean by the company standards on what they say. It is their opinion and their employees opinions on who they hire.
The retail market is a very competitive place and Cohen talks about how the environment is very important in the stores and such. For example, most places like Abercrombie and Fitch use loads of perfume or cologne to make there stores smell good, and make the people like the way it smells. It has to appeal to the youth to sell to the youth even though their parents are most likely paying. They want the youth to feel welcomed in there store and feel cool. Not all feel welcomed though, as they only offer jobs to people who they want to model there cloths, so those people who get asked to work there, anyone they are with like family and friends must feel quite awkward and not at “home” when it happens. I believe everything that is going on here because i have a very good looking female friend who was offered a job at these kinds of stores.
The way that they sell stuff now is relatively the same exact ways as they used years ago, as in the first time they sold things. I have no idea what time era that is but the techniques they used seem to be identical. Women, girls, females, seem to be the #1 way to profit for a man in the way things are sold. Although this is not true for everything, like Abercrombie and Fitch. They use Men and Women combined, making it seem as if they have romantic clothing, and that buying this shirt, or this sweater will get you a long time girlfriend.
I think that my friends and i have done this. For example, my friends and I went to the mall without parents for the first time quite awhile ago, and we saw many pretty girls. We walked by the vans store because the employees looked very attractive, I'm not sure anyone bought anything because we were young and didn’t bring a lot of money, but because of the girls, we walked into the store. SO if we were older and were loaded we might have bought some shoes or something and try to strike up a conversation with one of the workers.
Cohen states the truth in what he says's, if he agrees with it or not. His market research firm sounds very valid. He just wants to find the best possible ways to make big companies big money. I personally think that is should be up to the company to do what ever they want in this situation. Financially, the company wants to better itself so that's what they do.
