Points on Hollister Branding

• Hollister shop designed to look like a beach house. Attracts attention, is a talking point. Sells a lifestyle. The actual name Hollister is not big and loud like other traditional shop fronts, however the brand is very loud!

• Models work in store dressed as lifeguards. They are stereotypically good looking. They are there in front of you, there is no distance from the model like in a magazine ad. 

• Mannequins show what the clothes would look like on a human figure, of course this means the male mannequins in Hollister have sculpted bodies. 

• Use of the Dudes and Bettys and words such as "cool" and "epic." Words surfers may use, likely to attract the target age group. Very American. 
• Playing videos of the surfers in the shop - transports the viewers to this "cool paradise." If they are buying Hollister they are buying into this lifestyle.
• Carrier bags - people want to own the carrier bag to show people they fit in with the Hollister brand. They have bought items from the shop, the lifestyle applies to their aspirations, desires. The topless models on the carrier bag symbolise sexual attractiveness. When I walk around with this carrier bag, I am sexually attractive. I am desirable. The contents of the bag is irrelevant. Made from paper: authentic.
• Small entrance into the beach house shop.  Gives the impression of a VIP entrance, when you go inside you are entering a hyperreal space separated from the outside world. 
• Inside there are lamps and chairs and it is set up like a living room. The furniture again gives the impression of vintage pieces - a well established company. The lounge refers to a Lifestyle, the clothes are second to the set up in the shop. 
• They are entering a dark place. You can't see whats inside until you are actually inside. A sense of mystery. You want to go there and find out whats inside. 

Ride the Wave

http://www.hcoridethewave.com
The Ride the Wave website is a lifestyle site for and made by Hollister which focuses on the "Epic Store" opening in New York. It features Desktop Wallpapers and ScreenSavers. Videos about the Hollister Lifestyle like the one above show the surf lifestyle which is associated with the brand.

The video above shows topless "dudes" enjoying a "surfer's lifestyle" and going to castings for the new Hollister store. There is the implication that the store's exterior is inspired by a pier with its grid like, column structure. On the website the note below appears over the video.

MY OPINION: Hollister is aimed primarily at young teens (14-18), at this age teens are concerned about their appearance. Hollister brand taps into this, everything is about the appearance. Here people have the chance to submit their photos in a click in the hope of becoming a model. Instead of saying "are you an experienced model" the brand offers the viewer a chance to be 'famous' part of the 'good looking' brand. It creates a lack of constraint for young people, Hollister could fulfil their dreams.

SEXUAL REFERENCES: The closing of the video can be seen in the screenshot below. It pictures a guy and girl getting intimate in front of the waves and Hollister logo. The girl is wearing a bikini in keeping with the surfer image and the guy has his hands pulling her jeans down to reveal her bum. This all comes after the guy has talked about how cool it is working at Hollister. Here we are getting the message "the 'Hollister guy gets the girl." and every girl wants the Hollister guy. There are no faces here and this gives the impression the people or the scenario could apply to anyone - it could apply to that sixteen year old sat at home in Manchester wearing Hollister. SOMETHING ABOUT SEXUAL DESIRE HERE. HETROSEXUALITY.

This is the backdrop for the screen saver available to download and like the video it oozes Nostalgia. The dark edges and sepia, desaturated tones equate to the feeling of an old fashioned video, referring to when technology wasn't as good. This is coherant with Hollister's fictional story where the brand is established in 1922. Note that the brand never actually states it was established then, it just uses signs which connote this.

• Desaturated tones in videos and photos
• Writing the number 1922 under the brand name
• Flashy screen transitions give sense of old fashioned video
• Rustic frame, tranditional wall paper background
• Scratchy, imperfect logo - false authenticity.
• Old furniture in shops.
• Old style sepia photographs
• Handwriting versions of the logo, personal, trustworthy.

False Authenticity - Background on Hollister

Notice "1922"...

Hollister was established in 2000 by Mike Jeffries. Jeffries created a back story to try to make the brand seem more authentic. Hollister was founded in 1922 by J.M. Hollister.

"The concept for Hollister was built around a fictional background story created by Jeffries (Shown here) to provide a more “authentic” atmosphere for the Hollister shopper. The fictitious story claims J.M. Hollister founded the company in 1922 as a “Pacific merchant in SoCal.” On its Web site, the company defines itself as “Inspired by the sun-drenched spirit of California, and the surf and soul of the Pacific Ocean, Hollister is a laid-back, aspirational lifestyle destination.” In reality, it was launched in 2000 out of Columbus, Ohio by Abercrombie & Fitch, which was struggling at the time to reach a younger customer."

- http://business.transworld.net/8642/features/how-hollister-co-stole-surf-eight-years-after-abercrombie-fitch-invaded-the-surf-market-what-can-be-done-to-defend-against-them/

This article on a business news website describes how Hollister has attracted the attention of mainstream consumers and is threatening the surf industry with its false authenticity. This could be potentially biased in the aim of making an interesting story. However, it does have a backstory of Hollister and there are facts to support the story.

"Much of the store’s success is credited to its in-store experience; Hollister has invested millions into providing a “SoCal surf” atmosphere to both the interior and exterior design of its stores. The stores are meant to look like beach shacks. The interior is dimly lit with spotlights above the merchandise, and divided into two sections: “Dudes” and “Betties.” The company spent ten million dollars in 2007 outfitting its stores with flat screen TVs that play a live feed of the surf conditions at Huntington Beach pier. Stores are scented with the company’s signature SoCal fragrance, and there’s a corporate policy in place to play a controlled mix of licensed music—available for purchase at the register, of course—between 80-85 decibels. (OSHA requires employers to provide ear protection to employees exposed to decibel levels 90 and over.) In the middle of the store there’s a lounge area with chairs, surf magazines, and potted palm trees."

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http://hcohounds.tumblr.com/post/276422881

This site has a little background on Hollister. As it is a Tumblr page I would need to check back the facts with a stronger source but it is a useful summary.

At Abercrombie & Fitch, Sex No Longer Sells.

I wanted to take note of an article I found on quest, "At Abercrombie & Fitch, Sex No Longer Sells" written 31st Aug 2012. The reports explain a decline in sales at A&F and sub-brand Hollister and suggests that it is because teenagers are no longer impressed. "Today's teens are underwhelmed by the half-naked models and blaring, dimly lit stores."

It is from BusinessWeek.com and although the stats are likely to be correct, the reasons for decline are only speculations. I must consider there is a possible bias here to make the story more interesting. 

Hollister Carrier Bags - A Collectable Item?

So here I have found that you can actually purchase Hollister carrier bags on Ebay. The bag is an object of desire in itself.

Websites helping me to get to grips with some terminology

http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/vr.htm

This site is mainly aimed towards the computer/technology side of simulation but it defines/explains some of the key words and ideas by Baudrillard. It is more of secondary as it refers to some other theorists etc. I also had to look up some of the references as it a Canadian sight. I found this idea quite interesting although not directly relating to my project.

ALAN KAY: SIMULATIONS AND EDUCATION

Computer pioneer Alan Kay specifically associates the ability of computers to enhance education with simulations. In making this point, he criticizes most contemporary education by referring to physicist Murray Gell-Man’s remark that education in the 20th C. is like being taken to the world’s greatest restaurant and being fed the menu. "He meant that representations of ideas have replaced the ideas themselves; students are taught superficially about great discoveries instead of being helped to learn deeply for themselves" (148).

Kay claims that both adults and children "learn best when they can test their ideas through simulation." However, he warns that we must be aware of the limitations of the media we use to "amplify yearnings" for knowledge. He uses the example of photographs of great paintings in the study of art, in itself a resort to hyper-reality: "Little protest has been made over replacing high-resolution photographs of great works of art (which themselves do not capture the real thing) with lower-resolution videodisc images (which distort light and space even further). The result is that recognition, not reverie, is the main goal in life and also in school" (151).

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/simulationsimulacrum.htm

This one is about Simulation and Simulacra. 

This site is .edu which I have found to be the highest american educational domain. Similar to .ac.uk. It is from a university site. 

Key Words Dictionary

Capital:

Economic capital is expressed largely in symbolic terms as money and assets with monetary expression.” Beginning with Bourdieu in educational research

Cultural capital refers mainly to the products of education, whether these are visible in individuals (accent, vocabulary, bearing etc), connected to objects like qualifications or books, or connected to institutions, like schools and universities.” Beginning with Bourdieu in educational research

Social capital is based on who you know and networks you are in.

Desire: a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. (OED)

Disposition: a person's inherent qualities of mind and character.

Embody: To make part of a system or whole; incorporate

Fields:different areas in society including constitutions, social groups and work places.

Habitus: Simple Way: It is really a way of talking about the embodiment of previous social fields, whereby individuals acquire and carry ways of thinking and being and doing from one place to another. It is about how past social structures get into present action and how current actions confirm or reshape current structures. Beginning with Bourdieu in educational research

Habitus is ‘the way society becomes deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them’ (Wacquant 2005: 316, cited in Navarro 2006: 16). http://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/bourdieu-and-habitus/

‘...when habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it finds itself “as a fish in water” Beginning with Bourdieu in educational research

Hyperreal/Hyperreality: an image or simulation, or an aggregate of images and  simulations, that either distorts the reality it purports (intends) to depict or does not in  fact depict anything with a real existenceat all, but which nonetheless comes to  constitute reality. OR

"By "hyperreal," Baudrillard means the representation of a thing or event which has no counterpart or analog in consensus reality--the hyperreal is, in a sense, a new thing which seems to refer to something real." http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/vr.htm "He is concerned, for example, that the news on television has nothing to do with real-world events; rather, the news is a simulation designed to hold the attention of the viewer." 

Generation Y:  the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, comprising primarily the children of the baby boomers and typically perceived as increasingly familiar with digital and electronic technology. (Baby Bloomers born between 1946 and 1964. Post war, rejecting traditional values.)

Pseudo: Not genuine; sham.

Saturation: The state or process that occurs when no more of something can be absorbed, combined with, or added.

Schemata (pl of schema) : An outline, plan or scheme

Simulacrum (simulacra-plural): an image or representation of someone or something:

• a small-scale simulacrum of a skyscraper

an unsatisfactory imitation or substitute:a bland simulacrum of American soul music
"a material image, made as a representation of some deity, person, or thing,""something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities,"
Simulation: "the action or practice of simulating, with an intent to deceive,""the technique of imitating the behavior of some situation or process...by means of a suitably analogous situation or apparatus""a false assumption or display, a surface resemblance or imitation, of something,"Oxford English Dictionary
Simulation Vs Simulacrum:"Like the simulation, the simulacrum bears a resemblance to the thing that it imitates only on the surface level (see: surface), but as opposed to the simulation's mimicry of a process or situation, the simulacrum is defined as a static entity, a "mere image" rather than something that "imitat[es] the behavior" of the real thing on which it is based."http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/simulationsimulacrum.htmNOTE:AMERICANISM
Ubiquitous:Present, appearing, or found everywhere: "his ubiquitous influence".

Virtual: Existing in essence or effect though not in actual fact. Computing not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so:virtual image.