🙏 APC: How to Kill a Brand 💀
you hate to see it....
Good morning all, I saw Priscilla last night… and it was heat. I love Sofia Coppola and I thought the film was brilliant. It’s interesting to see her expand on her cinematic tropes to much reward, while David Fincher continues to butcher his legacy with Netflix, the most recent disappointing outing being ‘The Killer’ Skip that shit.
I am fired up this morning (due in part to a great chest workout and the news Drake is dropping ‘Scary Hours 3’) Side Note: I am self aware on how douchey that sounds. Anyway I want to talk about how to not just kill a brand…. but how to fucking murder it to the point of no return…. let’s talk about one of my favs: APC.
APC: Timeless Classics
Founded in 1987 but Jean Touitou, APC has become a fashion stalwart for classic, simple mens and womenswear. They are most famous for their raw denim (which I am wearing right now) This brand excels in this space, simple, elevated garments that are well made and mature.
PE is Ruining the Brand
Earlier this year, APC sold majority stake of the brand to PE firm L. Catteron which is understandable. Jean wants to cash out on the brand he’s built. But what often happens is the investment firm cuts the cool stuff, and attempts to juice revenue by expanding on what is popular and copying other success stories.
This worked well, as L. Catterton did a similar strategy with Ganni in 2017 and sold the brand last year for a significant profit.
Understandably, they have gone all in on collaborations. The only issue is the collaborations are horrible and make no sense.
Bad Collaborations
APC just announced this ‘Pokemon’ collaboration, which is what spurred today’s newsletter. I am sorry but I don’t care what the international market research shows, this collab is bad and does not make sense for the brand. Pokemon is for children, and APC is much more sophisticated than this.
You cannot be a grown adult wearing a Pokemon shirt.
They also recently collaborated with J.W. Anderson. I like some stuff from JW, I think he’s a great designer. But this collab is so lazyyyyyy… like logomania is done for. You can’t be out here rocking screenprinted logos like this.
and its evidently not working… the brand has been on Black Friday sale for the past week (please check the date this was published)
Past Collaborations
The most famous APC collab was there 2013 partnership with Kanye West which saw the creation of several garments from jackets, jeans, tees, etc. The collection was a smash hit at the time.
They’ve done many other good collabs in the past too… so its not out of the realm of possibility for this to work.
Brand Positioning
Brands do not live in a vacuum. They exist in the greater consumer culture, and can sometimes overlap in synergetic ways. The best collaborations take two brands with overlapping consumer demos and create a product that speaks to a larger cohort and builds on both brands worlds.
However, these new APC collabs just seem nonsensical to me, from my standpoint. They are not expanding the brand in a positive direction, rather they are making APC feel like fast fashion.
They should get back to what made them great and lean into the raw denim resurgence.
As a big APC fan, I say this with love ❤️
Lessons from a Perpetual Hater
One of the biggest lessons we can glean from this… is when part of creative conversations: be steadfast with what you don’t like. Its almost just as important as what you do.
About Jake
Jake Bell is a content marketing strategist based in NYC. He specializes in branding, art direction, creative strategy, content creation, and making things cool.
To get in touch visit www.jb.studio
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