They call me mellow yellow….
I was interested to read an article that appeared yesterday in the New York Times discussing Gap’s new marketing push. According the NYT, in recent years Gap has been struggling to attract shoppers, even before the recession, with unappealing merchandise being cited as the major issue.
Gap’s solution to this decline in interest has been a major refocus onto the company’s core product – jeans. They have developed a multi-layered ‘Born to fit’ campaign, which includes a Facebook page, video clips, an online fashion show and an iPhone application all aimed at drawing attention to the newly named Premium Jeans line. Also in the works are ads that will appear in movie theatres, magazines and outdoors. TV ads, on the other hand, are only a possibility.
I find this decision a little surprising. When sales fell TV ads were one of the first things to go. Personally speaking however I absolutely loved the Gap adverts from the 90’s such as the mellow yellow advert. Great tune, good looking/famous people in gap clothes = ads that get noticed and remembered. Is this formula too simple now? Do we really have to always be going bigger, better and more complex in a bid to grab people’s attention? If the current surge in nostalgic adverts are anything to go by then the answer would be no…
Tags: Gap, jeans, Marketing, New York Times, TV ads
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Comments (1)
August 15th, 2009 at 10:49 pm Posted by Ged Carroll
The targeting of ads, going for cinema but not TV makes sense if they are trying to position the brand at a younger audience who haven’t engaged with Gap yet.
Re the formula: its all down to the execution. If you ever saw Uniqlo’s Uniqlock campaign (online) or the iTunes / iPods ads you can see how it would work well. However if they just retread the steps that they’ve taken before they’re likely to be dead.
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