Does Forever 21 Have a PR Crisis, or a Communication Blip?

It's pretty easy to find yourself in the center of a social media firestorm these days. Between Bustle and the latest Swifties wrath, you'd think the Forever 21 memo would have slid right through. Wishful thinking.

It's pretty bad when greed, religion and politics all show up as the result of one communication. And by all accounts, the corp comm that went out was a fairly standard memo. That was before it was leaked and linked to Obamacare and underemployment. So was there a way to mitigate the message so the workers affected wouldn't lose their healthcare, and it wouldn't look so much like Forever 21 was just trying to save a buck or two?

Not helpful is the information coming out afterwards that in addition to downgrading employees from full time to part time, Forever 21 was projected to make $4 billion in 2012. HuffPo covered the story here. As I read the coverage, it became less about religion and more about a cost cutting move to save the company some money. Having read Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, I was a little dismayed to discover that at the base of the move is greed. I do wonder whether it will impact their sales or their ability to hire part time teenagers (their target market).

I suspect the parents will care more than the teenagers about Forever 21's decision. And as a general rule, parents control spending, and for those kids who have access to unlimited money, I don't think they are in the Forever 21 target market. So let's take a look at the target market: teenagers 14-18 and probably young adults 19-24. Let's go out on a limb and decide the teenagers income is low, and the parents probably make between $50-75K, own a home and have more than one child. The young adults are working a little bit while in school and after school are looking at about $30-50K (if they can find a job).

Funnily enough, I think Forever 21's target markets are also probably working there as part time employees to make a little money to supplement their income, and more importantly, to get the clothing discount. If staying current with fashion or shopping regularly is important to you, as I suspect it is to the Forever 21 target markets, then that discount is much more important than working full time, Obamacare or pretty much anything else.

Add to the argument that the target markets don't likely need insurance, since they are either covered by their parents or by their first job, and the impact to Forever 21 in any meaningful way is negligible. Which is a little crazy. It would seem like their target market should care more. And there are definitely members of the target market who cannot afford to shop regularly and need the full time hours to make ends meet and help themselves or their family, but realistically, these are not people/shoppers Forever 21 is counting on to make $4 billion in profits.

So, unfortunately, at the end of the day, I think Forever 21 is suffering the backlash of a communication blip, and if they don't come right out and say something incredibly offensive they should be okay, and long forgotten by Labor Day.