Lesson #2: Narrow The Market To Your Niche

“There’s the relaxed fit generation and then there’s the next generation,” says Charney. “We like sexy at American Apparel.”

Charney knows what kinds of people are buying his clothes and it is a very specific market. He is tailoring his designs towards this group of 20-something “contemporary metropolitan adults,” as he calls them. What does that mean exactly? To Charney, it is simple: it means tighter and sexier clothes than the baby boomer generation before them were used to. It also means giving his clothes bright and bold colours.

But marketing to Charney’s targeted audience is not limited to his designs. Indeed, the entire way Charney presents and promotes his company goes along with that idea of being bold, sexy, and provocative.

Without ever running a single television commercial, how has American Apparel succeeded in growing to the extent that it has thus far? What has brought the masses of these contemporary metropolitan adults coming back to its stores for more? Charney has gotten to the heart of what his niche market is truly after, and it is not just clothes.

Charney’s audience wants a message. They want to believe in something. They want to be a part of something greater. And that is exactly what Charney gives them.

“We don’t have branding on the shirts,” he says. “It’s not a status symbol.” From day one, Charney has refused to put any kind of visible American Apparel logo on his shirts. “I can’t wear any brand on my body - I just freak out,” he says. “I mean, if I’m with a girl who’s wearing a Christian Dior necklace, I can’t even fuck her. And then there are those girls - like every girl I seem to find - who has one those Louis Vuitton bags. C’mon, it’s fucking false tribalism.”

Charney identifies with his market, a group of people who are more socially-minded than their predecessors. To that end, he decided to market his company as not only brand-free, but also locally made and sweatshop free.

Charney would also go to other lengths to prove that his company was one that bucked the trend and respected its customers. One way of doing that was by making the size for most of American Apparel’s women’s clothing “M/OS,” or Medium One Size. That means that their clothing will fit all women. But beyond that, Charney hopes it will demonstrate that all women are essentially the same.

As he sees it, Charney has connected with an emerging youth movement, a network of new hip youths that want cool clothes, but do not want to be walking advertisements for giant corporations. They want bold and individual clothes that are about more than just big corporate profits. He knows that they do not mind being marketed to, so long as the product is real and matches their own attitudes about style and beyond.

But Charney also understands that his audience is fickle and that what selling point works today will not necessarily work tomorrow. “It’s like a sexy girl who keeps telling you she’s sexy,” he says. “It’s nauseating.” And so the values American Apparel upholds today will have to change to keep up with tomorrow.



Lesson #2: Narrow The Market To Your Niche

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