Ad Fail? American Apparel Pushes a Sandy Sale

Where the East Coast sees disaster, American Apparel sees marketing opportunity. The retailer sent out a mass email yesterday offering customers in states affected by Sandy 20% off. You know, "in case you're bored by the storm." This was met "uniformly with derision on Twitter," notes Adweek, especially the part about entering "SANDYSALE" at checkout. The Gap, too, encouraged folks to do some online shopping, but was more subtle. It even followed up with an apologetic tweet explaining that "our check-in and tweet earlier were only meant to remind all to keep safe and indoors."

Concludes Tim Nudd: "Clothing brands appear to have committed the biggest brand fails of Hurricane Sandy, with both American Apparel and Gap forgetting that death and loss make a poor springboard for promotional messaging." (More American Apparel stories.)