Tired and Washed Up

5 October 2005



French Connection to Downgrade FCUK Brand

The French Connection, a retail chain that borrowed its name from a Gene Hackman movie, is downgrading its FCUK (French Connection United Kingdom) brand after nine years of controversy. Alarming to dyslexics and old fuddy-duddies, the logo appeared on T-shits across the modern-marketing world. Some investors are alarmed by the abandoning of this brand, but the truth is it is a weak joke that went on a few year too long. Seeing profits drop by two-thirds in the last quarter proved as much.

The very idea that scrambling the letters of an obscenity could provoke an advertising “buzz” merely goes to show how simpleminded consumers can be, and how marketing is sometime best done by 13-year-olds with too much time on their hands. However, the BBC says the puritans have managed to force the company to “have all its UK advertising vetted by the Advertising Standards Authority before screening after repeatedly breaching the advertising standards code with its use of the logo.” French Connection has also seen FCUK products tossed out of US stores by a similarly broadminded bunch of Yank busybodies.

The company did say that the FCUK brand was being “downgraded” rather than junked, which means that if sales decline further, the same stupid logo could return. For now it will be used “sparingly”. Company flak Lorna Perrin said, “Fashions have changed. We have moved on.” Whether the company can create anything as “buzzworthy” is doubtful.

A great many organizations have dropped their best slogans and logos over the years in an attempt to “update the image.” And a great many have fallen flat. Perhaps no greater marketing disaster exists than the decision by the US Army to drop “Be all you can be” in favor of “an Army of One.” Frankly, being an Army of One in Sadr City sounds a bit daunting, if not suicidal – then again, “bring friends, lots of 'em” won’t help flagging recruitment.

However, there is a distinction between good attention and bad attention that some children never learn, and most of them grow up to become advertising professionals. FCUK could well be replaced by SIHT or something equally clever, and all will be as it was. Or worse, sales could drop off the table, and the company will decide FCUK is all that stands between it and bankruptcy. Was there ever a day when people bought a shirt because of the fabric, the craftsmanship and the color rather than the corporate emblem emblazoned on it? What a naïve world it must have been.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home

Google
WWW Kensington Review







Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More