By now, I am sure that you have seen the new Gap logo. Whatever caused the company to replace the very familiar blue logo with white lettering, I'll never know. Customers were upset by the redesign and protested on Facebook and Twitter. And I can't say that I disagree with them. The new logo looks very low tech and just plain lazy. It is certainly not the jazzy, polished yet simple look that the Gap is so famous for.
| Before meet After |
As for the Gap, they were able to react quickly to the angry mob and undo the new logo design. As of October 11th, the company is returning to the blue and white design. In an article at HuffingtonPost, written by Marka Hansen, President of Gap North America, she had this to say:
“We've learned a lot in this process and know we did not go about this in the right way. Ultimately we have learned just how much energy there is around our brand, hearing over and over that people are passionate about the blue box.”
It is my opinion that retailers can learn a lot from this. The first being that, re-branding has to be more than just a logo change. One of the most successful re-branding of a company I have ever seen is the redo of Chic-Fil-A. When I was a kid, Chic-Fil-A was just another mall food store. Granted, they had good chicken, but they were still sort of boring. Then, they came up with the “Eat More Chicken” campaign along with a complete redesign. Re-branding has to be part of a larger change in a company.
The other thing that can be learned here is to never underestimate the power of twitter. Being able to talk to your customers personally and in real time is a double edged sword. When they are unhappy, you will hear about it, over and over again. Suddenly the upset customers can become the angry Twitter mob.
The bright side to the whole fiasco is that the Gap has inadvertently made their customers more brand loyal than they were before. Customers who were previously unenthusiastic about the Gap, who participated in the Twitter mobbing feel like they have won. This causes them to have a more emotional stake in the company, which means better customers for the clothing retailer.
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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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