No A&F clothes 'payoff' joke fits 'The Situation'
Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie's chairman and chief executive, said Wednesday the company was "having a lot of fun" with the proposed payoff, which analysts and MTV characterized as a publicity stunt -- even if a pretty good one for a slow day in August.
In a news release with the title "Abercrombie & Fitch Proposes a Win-Win Situation," the company said Tuesday that it had become concerned after noticing that a cast member, Mike Sorrentino, known as "the Situation," had taken to wearing its clothes.
Jordan Yospe, a lawyer who handles product-placement deals in movies and television shows, said that if Abercrombie were serious about keeping its clothing off the Situation, it would have pursued legal options rather than offering him money.
Kerr, the public relations consultant, said the episode echoed one last year on the same show, when rumors about product placement surrounded Sorrentino's cast mate Nicole Polizzi, known as "Snooki," a brunette with voluminous hair who likes to wear tiny leopard-print dresses.
The contention, never confirmed but given media attention nonetheless, was that luxury handbag companies were supplying Snooki with rival brands' purses so that theirs would not be associated with her.
[...] an analyst did, and Jeffries explained the background.