Founded in 1969, more than just about any other brand GAP is all about being contemporary without trying too hard. For a number of years it was content to sell Levi’s jeans and identify itself with the lower case gap logo. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the enclosed mall shopping concept was really taking off and creating a recognizable retail outlet was a sensible strategy. But as the look of clothes retail- ing changed in the early 1980s, GAP began to look dated. Other retail stores had copied the GAP formula, using similar store design and selling look-alike products. Multicolored T-shirts and sweat shirts were piled high in many clothes stores which replicated the GAP feel and atmosphere. The original had to do something to preserve its position.
The company’s CEO Millard “Mickey” Drexler realized it was time for The GAP to stop thinking of itself as a retailer and start
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thinking like a brand. The result is the creation of one of the star brands of recent years.
The company’s turnaround under Drexler was impressive. In 1983, the company changed its logo to long, clean-limbed upper- case letters to become The GAP. So different was the new corporate identity that commentators have observed that the old logo seems to belong to a different company altogether.
By 1991, it had re-invented itself, dropping the Levi line alto- gether and creating its own branded clothing lines. But The GAP stores are only one part of the story. In the US, The GAP Inc. also revitalized Banana Republic – acquired in 1983, tired by the 1990s, since rejuvenated. GAP Inc. also introduced Old Navy Clothing stores in 1994, with a warehouse feel to the outlets.
In effect, the company fashioned three distinctive identities tar- geted at different market segments. At the top end, there is Banana Republic; at the lower end is Old Navy; and occupying the upper- middle ground is the GAP brand. Key to the brand offering in all three cases is freshness. The company is constantly introducing new colors and rotating its offerings to ensure that, whatever the season or the latest fashion, you can walk into its stores and find something that is entirely contemporary. The styles change far less frequently, and the average shopper knows that GAP purchases are solid pur- chases with a good wardrobe shelf life.
The company has successfully integrated marketing and adver- tising supported branding into its merchandising operation. The clean, uncluttered look that is the hallmark of the GAP brand image works just as well across age groups. With more than 1000 stores in the US Canada, France, Germany Japan and the UK, plus over 550 GAPKids and BabyGAPs, creatively, all the GAP branding has the same feel, and the same simple clothes designs.
Drexler’s insight proved prescient. Since, 1994, when some com- mentators were writing the company off as a “mature business,” sales have rocketed. “They made their name into a brand,” notes one lead- ing retailing analyst. “They are one of the few retailers who have that luxury.”1
Once bitten by the branding bug, Drexler is said to have im- mersed himself in information about the world’s leading brands, especially Coca-Cola. It is no coincidence that Sergio Zyman, a se- nior marketing executive from Coca-Cola, was invited to join the GAP board of directors. “The GAP accelerated to the point where the brand was on fire,” the partisan Zyman has observed. “There is no competitor who has a kind of brand essence that can pose a threat.”
The company is taking no chances. It is pouring advertising money into its brand strategy like gasoline to keep the flames high. In 1996, the company spent around $100 million; in 1997, it spent $150 million.
In 1995, recognizing the strength of its brand appeal, The GAP added a line of personal care products packaged with an upbeat stain- less steel look that complemented the brand aesthetics and the no- nonsense feel of its stores.
The new product line smacked of quality, but affordable quality.
It was designer design, without designer prices.
The management style of the company is also important. The corporate culture encourages a degree of risk taking, and mistakes are considered a learning opportunity. The company prides itself on its ability to make fast decisions without lots of management layers.
“We decide, ‘is it the right thing for the business?’” one executive at the company observed. “When The GAP decides to do something, we do it. That’s a rare thing in a company.”
The company also has a flair for PR. In September 1997, it or- ganized the “GAP at Work” event. Executives from the company rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange. The ex- change has a shirt and tie dress code, but it allowed floor workers to wear the khaki chinos and blue shirts The GAP handed out.
In recent years, too, the company has shown a willingness to move with the times, embracing Internet shopping.
While there is a retro feel to the advertising that harks back to traditional American values, GAP appears to have learned from its crisis in the early 1980s of the dangers of becoming outdated. What customers get at a GAP outlet, as well as some pretty good clothes in a wide variety of colours, is the brand’s unspoken promise not to be
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left behind – a second time. It is a triumph of conservatism over the fashion industry. The GAP brand promise is one of safe, comfort- able clothes that will never embarrass the wearer. More than this, the company has successfully exported classic American style to parts of the world that had previously managed to resist it. It is not unusual, for example, to find teenagers in Rome, Paris or London dressed in GAP baseball caps and US style sweats.
Above all it is easy shopping. Stores offer easy access and gar- ments are color co-ordinated for customers. The company’s first major TV advertising campaign in 12 years was kicked off by rap artist LL Cool J. The rap? “How easy is this?”
Notes
1 Cuneo, Alice, “Marketer of the Year: The GAP,” Fortune, De- cember 1997.