Most ads that come from Abercrombie lately have basically been oversexed schlock, but they still seem to pull in customers to buy their $80 jeans. What is it about this store and their ad campaigns that make them so popular? I found one of A&F more 'conservative' ads and analyzed it....
The first thing I noticed about this ad was the extremely dominant focus on the couple and the blurred visuals behind the twosome. The human eye naturally focuses toward the lighter, brighter fabric: the guy's shorts. That leads up to his blood red tee-shirt, bearing the name of... guess who: Abercrombie. So, right from the get go, the consumer knows what he's looking at. How do we assume that this is a boy-girl couple? The person on the right, even with a hat on, has the facial features of a woman: her face is softer and petite looking. The clothing the person is wearing is advertised later in the catalogue as 'women's' clothing. The hair on the subject is longer- which by cultural standards defines a woman. The person on the right can be defined as a man from his squared-jaw and Adam's apple. One thing that could confuse gender roles would be the 'male's' shaved legs. The male is wearing a snowboard, which in today's society is considered a male-dominated sport, while the female is wearing the traditional skis. This is the only 'normal' male-female relationship status we see as an audience.
The two seem 'in their own world,' yet they are putting on a little show ten feet in the air. The way the pic is taken seems that they are frozen in time. It's the illusion of that perfect moment in time lasting forever.
Society has come to normalize the feature of smooth legs for women, more so than males. They've almost switched gender roles. Look at his boots- they have fluffy tops on them. He is showing more skin than she is, which is unlike many modern ad campaigns where the female is the sex symbol. The female is almost covered from head-to-toe. What the couple (or lovers, or partners) could possibly do is almost switch clothing and still be considered acceptable in society. She carries more male qualities and he seems more submissive. She's obviously the dominator in the picture. She's a few inches above him in height, she has her arm around him, and he almost looks shocked- both of his feet aren't in the snowboard straps. He seems taken aback by her 'sudden' jolt of love. She's got him all the way to his side of the seat and emphasizing her 'domination' of the situation. What is funny is he's the salience of the ad, but she's got the control. This may explain why Abercrombie has a larger percentage of women shoppers than men. Their ads empower women to feel that their men should have perfect bodies and accept them for who they ...