The Gap in Advertising

Easy does it, social scientists. This isn’t about the gap in advertising, but rather The Gap in advertising, as in the retail chain that totes jeans, jackets, flip-flops and more. From my point of view, its brand image is struggling something fierce.

The Gap is in the midst of an identity crisis not seen since…well, since a month ago when Chicago’s flagship Marshall Field’s store officially became Macy’s. A moment of silence, please.

Thank you. Back to The Gap. Several years ago, the company was the leader of the pack in terms of creative, fashionable television ads. You may recall the highly entertaining ads featuring mini-musicals that launched in the late nineties. Dancers stretched across the screen rallying around the tagline “Everybody in Khaki” for example.

The company did and still does handle its advertising internally. But over time, those Bob Fosse-ish gems have been replaced with a chameleon-like mixture of marketing messages. And jazz hands are nowhere to be found.

Throughout spring and summer, Gap chanted color, color everywhere! I remember spotting a psychedelic Gap bus parked along the beach in Santa Monica. Cheerful Gap promoters handed out bright key chains and sold t-shirts in every color of the rainbow.

That strategy lasted all of six months. Maybe. You wouldn’t expect it to be wildly successful in NYC, where black rules the streets. But apparently the rest of the country wasn’t too quick to jump on the colorful bandwagon either.

The latest effort is all about the Skinny Black Pant. Cue Audrey Hepburn, stage left. The Gap clipped a scene from the delightful classic “Funny Face” and laid it over a rock-n-roll track. I love advertising, but it bothers me that they did this (even though the late Hepburn’s son consented to it). Some things are better left untouched. Frank Sinatra should not sell vacuums at all, much less posthumously. End of story.

Other Gap ads feature celebs or models sporting skinny black pants in an array of styles. It leaves me a little confused. Are they going for mod chic or grunge rock? Or old-school Michael Jackson (sans sparkly glove)? Maybe all of the above.

I’m predicting this campaign will help their sales – in New York, anyway. But the bottom line remains, The Gap needs to fill in the gaps in its splintering image. Because its current tagline could very well be “Everybody in Disarray.”