Gap’s changing logo caused quite a stir last week as they quietly soft-launched a new logo on their web site and a few days later – amidst brand-bashing and Monday-morning-quarterbacking – announced they were returning to their old logo. The commentary I read and heard ranged from irrelevant (“I don’t like the new logo”, “It’s bad design”) to opportunistic (“What were you thinking, Gap? Let my agency show you the way.”) to arrogant (“It was a mistake”, "You should never soft-launch a new logo.")
Whether Gap’s decision to change its logo was wrong or right may be fun to debate but is a question with no real answer. Instead, as a brand strategist and executive coach (and a former Gap Inc. employee), these are the questions I care about:
What was the new logo solving for?
My guess is that one of Gap’s objectives was to signal newness through the new logo, a common and worthy objective for any re-brand. If that, in fact, was true for Gap then that leads to my next question.
What’s new other than the logo? What story did Gap want to tell?
When creating a new name for a product or company, it is often said that a name is an opportunity to tell a story.
So is a new logo.
And that’s what is really missing here: a compelling story that Gap’s target customer cares about. A new logo absent that story risks seeming random and ambiguous. And, without Gap supplying said story, others filled in the blank – to Gap’s detriment.
Why now?
Gap’s business has been challenging for a while so what makes now the right time for such a visible and significant change? I can assure you that creating and implementing a new logo is expensive, complicated, workload-intensive and a lengthy process - not a decision made lightly or easily. That said, it can be exciting and a spot-on-right decision that corresponds with a bigger change that is happening within a company. See above.
Who are we talking to?
Who is the target audience that your brand/product/stores exist to serve?
What do we want the logo to communicate?
What is the desired perception you intend to create in the mind of your target? What is the role of the logo?
What is the logo communicating to your target audience?
What is the actual perception created? Does the logo communicate what you need it to communicate to the people that matter most? How do you know?
Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of Gap's original decision, the brand stumbled in the execution of that decision. Gap seemed (whether true or not) unprepared to share a relevant, meaningful story behind their decision and, therefore, missed a plum platform to garner more attention, enhance brand perceptions and drive people into their stores – the latter being the real name of the game. This story gap (no pun intended) fueled negative perceptions and commentary that sent the company spinning. In branding (and life), perception is everything and Gap’s brand became easy fodder for every Tom, Dick and Harry to spew on.
But all is not lost for Gap because within difficulty lies opportunity.
Enter Don Draper in the October 10 episode of Mad Men, "Blowing Smoke". After being fired by Lucky Strike, one of the ad agency’s largest accounts, Don “changed the conversation” with a full-page New York Times ad that read “Why I Quit Tobacco.” His tactic, an implicit ad for the agency itself, was designed to change client and industry perceptions about the agency from one that was sinking to one that was calling its own shots.
If Draper changed the conversation, Gap has just started a conversation. More people are talking more about Gap now than they have in years and that is an opportunity for any brand to leverage. So, the real question now is this:
What will Gap do with this attention?
Shine on, Gap, and welcome to the conversation. Keep it going.
Comments
If you were to turn back time about 15 years, try out Microsoft PowerPoint for the first time and have absolutely no marketing or design skills whatsoever, you'd still be hard pushed to create a logo more dire than last week's new Gap logo. The logo was, very simply - well, you can see it above.
In an even more confusing strategic decision, Gap didn't tie its new logo in with a company-wide rebrand across its various media. Normally a move like this from such a large business would warrant a multimedia advertising campaign, introducing the logo and familiarising the audience with it. Yet the new Gap logo simply appeared, quietly, on the Gap website early last week.
Not so subtly, however, that it didn't provoke tsunamis of disdain throughout the marketing world. Choice comments included: "It make Old Navy look like a luxury brand"; "It looks like it cost $17"; "I'll be surprised if a few people won't lose their jobs as this is basic branding 101." Feedback was so damning, in fact, that Gap has now reverted back to the old logo, after mere days.
Its sudden implementation of the logo might well be explained by the 4% year-on-year sales drop it was experiencing - but such jerky reactiveness is ill-informed. We spoke to Claire Nuttall, insight and innovation director at branding agency 1HQ, to find out where it all went wrong. "The logo just felt as if it had moved too far away from anything Gap resembled," she says. "Gap's previous campaigns have been very engaging, but the new logo seemed to lack any personality or connection. It was empty and sterile from a brand that historically had far greater meaning associated with it. It just didn't feel 'Gap'."
Nuttall emphasises the importance of continuity on look and feel for a brand with so much heritage. "Gap didn't include any of what it developed over time - everything that creates brand belief and commitment." Usually a brand develops slowly over time, with messages gradually layering up. "But this looked standalone and didn't connect with Gap in any way. It felt generic."
The more cynical citizens of the blogosphere have suggested the entire debacle was one big viral ploy, designed to drum up loyalty for the traditional Gap image and act as a quick publicity defibrillator, but Nuttall thinks that would be a strategy too dangerous for a brand Gap's size. "And it would have been very shortsighted."
So what hope for Gap now? Well, the speedy expedience from Gap in releasing an apologetic press release let the business reclaw some ground, albeit in a somewhat self-congratulatory way. "Ultimately, we've learned just how much energy there is around our brand," the release reads. "At Gap brand, our customers have always come first." And so, it promises, it will bring back its 'iconic blue box' across all channels.
A conciliatory humbleness at the end could signal a more positive next step in the rebrand though. "We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community," Gap said. "There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we'll handle it in a different way."
Rana Khodadoust, strategist at brand consultancy Wolff Olins, has some suggestions for Gap. "Crowd-sourcing new ideas in the wake of such heavy criticism could be their saving grace." Khodadoust thinks there could be good scope to use what's happened in a more innovative way.
"It would be great to see this project go beyond image and start to act as a platform for participation, from create your own iconic t-shirts through to suggestions for future collaborations. Gap has a heritage in doing so with designers like Valentino and ranges like [RED] so there is something to build on and take further."
Nuttall agrees: "I think an opportunity would be for them to say, 'Come on guys, help us create the brand'. It's what they should be doing and it's the Gap way - working with and engaging communities." She says online isn't the only path here - consumer groups are equally valuable.
If Gap does re-engage with its obviously passionate community in the right way, this could even be the start of something special - if, that is, the business learns the lessons that seem so glaringly obvious to the rest of us.
My guess is that Gap has research and strategies that we don't have visibility to and are driving their decisions. I am also guessing that the logo change was tied to something bigger that has not yet been revealed. Or not. I really don't know.
Two things were missing for me in what Gap's new logo and all of the post-commentary 1) the target customer and what is relevant and meaningful to him/her and 2) how it related to anything else. That the logo was deemed generic or bad design is less important to me because, as you know, "liking" a logo design isn't the point. Rather, what problem is it solving?
Thanks again, Mark, for your comment. It's a fun dialog to be part of.