Well that was a short break. Known for its enthusiastic, celebrity heavy ad campaigns, Gap Inc. took an austere stance against advertising this spring, looking to realign the company's core business and focus on its bottom line.
But the call of back to school products was too much for them to stay away for long.
By trimming marketing costs by 18 percent, the retailer saw a 40 percent gain in sales for the last year, but yesterday the company announced it would launch a campaign to market its collaboration with new head designer Patrick Robinson. The company's stock rose 5 percent after the announcement, but Gap is still struggling to position itself in the retail market. Also yesterday, The Telegraph reported that The Gap has been surpassed as the world's largest fashion retailer by Spanish chain Zara.
The strength of the Euro may account for some of Zara's gains, but The Gap is still straddling the line between fashion and big box retail. Their return to advertising this quarter is a way to capture the profitable back-to-school market.
For many retailers, the fall is the second biggest selling season. Wal-Mart is trying to appeal to tweens with ads featuring (and personal phonecalls from) Miley Cyrus, while JCPenney is trying to appeal to teens — or perhaps their parents — with a "Breakfast Club" nostalgia campaign. Meanwhile, Sears has partnered with MTV to tap into "High School Musical" craze with a made-for-TV movie called The American Mall (a title strangely reminiscent of a spoof video from CBS's "How I Met Your Mother")
The Gap's campaign eschews television for online, print, and outdoor ads. It has also shifted from star studded celebrity faces to a more fashion forward approach. The partnership with Robinson is just one in a slew of big box stores working with high-end designers. Called "Create Your Own Gap," the new ads will be shot by fashion photographer
Mikael Jansson, with a focus on "actors and style makers." The biggest name in the campaign is actress Liv Tyler. Others to be featured include designer Georgina Chapman, blogger Scott Schuman, and Mishapes DJ Leigh Lezark.
Gap has gotten into trouble before for branching out too far from tshirts and khakis, but soon this campaign may answer the questions we've all been dying to know: can bloggers and unemotive DJs sell clothes?
Photo: Flickr/futureshape
