When Cheaper Fashion Yields Dumber Ads

TBM's Jill Priluck wrote a piece today about Coach's (COH) new line, Poppy. The article raises a timely question: How do you survive a recession when you're a luxury brand that doesn't want to water down your image? Sure, it's maddening to see mid-size bags being sold for $1,450 when 9.5 percent of the work force is unemployed, but (as Priluck's article points out) luxury brands risk alienating the remaining people who could possibly buy their products when they peddle cheaper versions of their usual fare.

Enter Poppy.

When you reach the Coach Poppy home page, it invites you to take a quiz to find out "Are you Poppy?" Your Poppy status is determined by which adjectives you favor in a series of either/or propositions. The first question, for example, asks if you are "fun" or "pretty"—because, lord knows, you can't be both. Instantly, visions of my freshman year women's studies professor flashed in my brain. Yesterday, I moved a dozen boxes 50 blocks south to my new apartment so, no, I do not feel pretty. Fun it is. Next question: "love" or "super cute"? Again, 50 boxes. Morningside Heights to Midtown. I choose love—as in, "I will ‘love' it when my new roommate and I buy a toilet paper stand from Bed Bath & Beyond (BBY) today."

So I don't want to ruin the ending, but the quiz deemed me a "Poppy girl." All four times I took the quiz. Regardless of how many times I changed my answers. I suppose this means I must now purchase a hideous, $178 fedora. Not to be too harsh, but it's a good thing the line is geared toward younger consumers because no one past prom night would fall for this gimmick.