The Gap, Inc. and The New Campaign

The Gap, Inc. is a clothing and accessories retailer headquartered in San Francisco, California. It has presence in over 40 countries worldwide. The Gap, Inc. is now a leading global specialty retailer, a company that distributes its products through its retail stores, internet and catalog stores, and a company that operates wholesale and franchise businesses. However, the company recently communicated its plans to close some of its stores and cut some corporate jobs in some of the stores.

New IMC Campaign

The Gap “effortless cool” brand identity over the last few years has diminished with the emergence of competing firms. The market share has reduced which has made the firm’s sales to decline.The company lagged behind the market due to the competition that came from multiple competing fast fashion brands such as H&M and Forever21 (“Financial and Strategic Analysis Review”, 2014)The recent “Dress normal” campaign didn’t have any noticeable impact on the generation of extra revenues. The communication problem the firm is experiencing is on reaching out to two different groups of people: Generation X and the millennials generations.

For 13 weeks to end of July last year, the firm’s total sales dipped from $3.9bn to $3.85bn, a decline of 1.3% in total sales. Gap’s geographic split remained broadly similar: Europe contributed 5% of earnings while Asia generated 10%. Canada brought in 7% and the US contributed the lion’s share at 77%. The company’s broad geographic existence prevents it from the risk of developing in a particular economy (Brown, 2014).

The objective of this campaign will therefore improve the total sales by 3% in the first quarter, and 4% on the following quarters in the current financial year. Geographically, the lion’s share will still be contributed by the US, but targeted Europe share is upto 10%, Asia target is 15% and Canada rising to 10%.

Target Customers

Gap, Inc. operates three different brands for three main demographics: Old Navy for cost and fashion conscious teenagers, Gap for young adults, and Banana Republic for more affluent and relatively older customers.

The Gap brand is a company that used to focus its marketing on men and women “ranging from seventeen to twenty-five years old” in the middle or upper class (“Target Market,” 2010). Since closing 189 stores and declining 19% in profits, Gap has shifted its focus to a new kind of consumer (“Gap Struggles,” 2014). This new consumer is the an older simple yet elegant, modern shopper looking for moderately priced but good-quality clothing and accessories (Klug, 2014).

The IMC Message

Keeping you warm and classy!

Perception by customers

With strong understanding of consumer preferences and wide customer reach, Gap Inc has established a strong image for itself in the U.S. apparel market.Although Gap apparell is not considered to be particularly “trendy” amongst most shoppers, the brand maintains the status of the “go to place” for the everyday, high quality clothing. Sale consumers at Gap make up a strong percentage of the consumers, constituting over half of the overall profits in both its online and in store markets (Rupp, 2014)

At the end of the campaign, the customers should perceive the firm’s products as “top priority” in the list. Gap’s products should be trendy, if it means having elevated evening collectionmeant for a special night out, then it is Gap’s!

In 2010, Gap Inc attempted to revamp its logo but received immididate negative criticisms hence not a brilliant idea to reconsider revamping it. However, colour changes, especially on female’s products should be introduced as per their tastes and preferences. The most brilliant idea the firm would want to relay is that, we are still the best, like we’ve always been in 1990’s. The aspect of clothing is to look classy, hence the message keeping you warm and classy.

Delivering the message

The most appropriate time to deliver the message is towards the end of the fall and the beginning of the winter season. The mid month (15th to 25th) of December should the perfect time to deliver the message. Such times offers great opportunity in delivering the message “keeping you warm and classy”.

Since the US contributes a larger share in the sales volume, San Francisco, California where the firm is headquarted should the perfect place to deliver the message and then spread it across the US.

Most effective communications mix

While the common media platforms such as the Television advertising campaings, radio advertising and newpapers advertising are the best in reaching out the target audiences, social media platforms will play a big role especially to teenagers customers who constitutes a higher percentage in the social media. Traditional media platforms will reach out to the old age market segment while the social media will reach out to the generation X market segment.

Target Cost

A $350,000 per 30 second on the national TV advertising and $150,000 per newspaper advertsing. The radio platform will costs approximately $50,000, say per week. The social media campaigns will approximately costs $200,000. Hence, taking a 15%-20% of the recent annual revenue will cater for the entire promotional campaign period. A sum total of approximately $ 0.5Billion will suffice.