Bridging the Gap between product & customer
I’ve written about The Gap before and the issues I’ve seen with their marketing (advertising) campaigns. I think Sara Jessica Parker is terrific and I admire Madonna (world-class marketer) but neither of them appearing in the Gap commercials inspire me to dash out and buy anything. Despite all the singing and dancing - the products are blah, generic stuff - and I know I can’t pull off running around in skin-tight jeans with a man’s tie for a belt anyway. Of course, I gave the company the benefit of a doubt, as I’m likely not the target market. But then who is? My intuition recently proved to be correct - the Gap revenues have been steadily dropping even as they’ve spent mega-millions on celebrities.
From Ad Age: (registration required)
…Season after season the retailer has hired big-gun celebrities such as Macy Gray, Sarah Jessica Parker and Madonna and put them front and center in their ads. And season after season sales have slipped, with Gap Inc. reporting the worst performance of the last three years earlier this month — a 7 percent decline in comp-store sales, results its own CEO called “unacceptable.”
Of course there are other factors at work here such as product range, store design and a fiercely competitive retail economy, but some experts believe the ad strategy is a big part of the problem.
The other factors? Well, it really all comes down to the “blah factor.” People wouldn’t care much about store design if the Gap was “cool” (Look at Target.) Unfortunately, this “blah” also applies to the Gap’s web site (which also has a number of other marketing and basic functionality issues - sad to say, since I know they just did a major expensive renovation.)
Idea: Forget glitzy advertising (with or without celebrities) for a bit and think about the customers. Who are the targets? What hooks them? What are they wearing/buying now? How can the product mix be changed to create word of mouth/buzz? Marketing is much, much more than advertising - something we all need to remember when working to attract (and keep) customers.
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November 30th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
I must be weird (or maybe I’m just old) but it’s been decades since I’ve seen a commercial that inspired me to want to dash out and buy anything. Then, too, I’m reminded here of something I heard Bob Cauthorn say about newspapers. He was urging young journalists to forget about winning journalism awards and focus instead on writing news that readers would find relevant. And he said that when the news stories are relevant, the newspaper doesn’t need a marketing department.
Of course, in terms of product catagories, newspapers are a very different animal from clothing retailers. Still, I remember back during the ’70s and ’80s when The Gap didn’t need multi-million dollar ad campaigns. All us high school and college students just knew that if you wanted to find the cool jeans with the right labels, you went to The Gap. And, conversely, it seems that it doesn’t matter how much money you spend on either marketing or advertising, if you don’t have the cool stuff, those teenagers who care about cool are not going to shop at your store.
April 9th, 2006 at 4:41 am
By looking at the financial statement of Gap Inc in 2006, it looks like they are in deep trouble.One year sales growth is merely 1.5%.
However, their competitors are flying high. One year sales growth of “Abercrombie & Fitch Co” is 37.8%.
The product design is old and there is not much of variety in the product line. It doesn’t appeal most to the next generation people.Hence they are going away from the Brand.
What are the possible remedies for Gap Inc:
1) Acquire one of it’s major cometitors and get rid of it’s own factories that are based on old technologies(Assumption is that their technology is old wrt the competitors).
2) Renovate it’s products to suite the next genartion requirement.
However, the second choice requires a lot of time which Gap Inc may not have. The first choice may be a good option to ensure a quick turn around.
What do you say???
Thanks
Bijaya
September 10th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
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