Clawing for Premium Brand Toiletry Kits

Dear junior advertising associate,

This photo, taken at a Staten Island roller skating rink, reflects a fascinatingly dense maze of important social, political, and economic concepts. Of the academic, artistic, commercial, and journalistic applications this photo invites I will suggest just one. Your firm will pitch a new ad campaign to Coach targeting ironically conscious but fashionably confused affluent females ages 22 to 32. Companies are always looking for ways to penetrate markets outside their core demographic and if presented correctly, this campaign's oblique sensibility will attract both "savvy" label mavens and "savvy" label maven haters. Keep in mind that Coach's market value has been halved during the last six months. What this means for you is that suits in Coach's boardroom who are under the gun for new ways to grow profits will be more receptive than usual to ideas that radically alter their sacrosanct brand.

Congratulations in advance on your promotion.

Sincerely,
M.M.

Investing in A Company I Hate to Love *

The recent "acquisition" of American Apparel will result in the ability to buy/sell its company's stock...

I'm typically not one to chuck money at something i don't completely understand but this is deja vu all over again (yes, it's happened three times total). A few years back i remember thinking that the newly listed Urban Outfitters stock wouldn't fare so well. "Who needs all that kitchy clothing anyway" I thought. Well, you can probably guess what didn't happen to that non-investment (it proceeded not to quintuple in the following three years). The same goes for my non-followed hunch on H&M.

THIS time it's going to be different. I've pooled some pennies together and bought the stock of a company who's image I sorta can't stand. BUT as i've learned many (painful) times before, just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean that millions of midwestern mall traipsing children won't! What's the downside you ask? Well, losing all your money and directly supporting the kiddie porn industry to name two.

Dove Charney, MY CAPITALIST ANTI-CHRIST.

Confession: The only tshirt I will purchase is American Apparel size large (oops!).

Disclaimer: Don't go out and buy this stock then blame me when it plummets to zero. I am ABSOLUTELY NOT recommending that anyone make this investment.

Late December 2006 newstory / Two year chart of stock ticker APP

* Much credit to my friend JasonY for bringing this late December announcement to my attention