Shorts Cuts: What Gaps Failures Teach The World About Business
March 30th, 2010 | 
Author: Shorts Cuts: What Gaps Failures Teach The World About Business
I was watching an old TV show from last year gosh my TiVo has so much stored it could have been from two years ago and found myself gawking at a supercolorful Sarah J Parker dancing and carousing to “I Just Love Being a Girl” in a really horrible ad for “The Gap” and its new line of pink khakis! It occurred to me this company has had more trouble in the last decade and that all businesses need to pay attention to the veteran retailer….so they don’t end up a joke like The Gap has become. Let’s go to the tape:
- Consistency is everything. I’ve got to say Gap was the best place to go for undergarments while I was in my 20′s. Instead of doing laundry on Monday nights my pals all went to theGap for Ts and shorts; it was all good because we didn’t have to find quarters for the machines. The quasifashionable Gap of the prior 10 years is a purely fabricated hybrid of pseudo cool and ridiculously cheap clothing you would buy then regret. If only Gap and most businesses would return to basics and stay put Gap slogans are fanciful while the quality is hardly that we might be loyal. I mean there’s a Gap near every Starbucks for Chrissake!
- Panderingbad! The way Gap tries to be like every other clothing store is tawdry and transparent. Sometimes pretending to be sister B. Republic during those periods when she’s severely upscaleawful. It’s their way of asking us if they’re doing the right thing and it’s mildly schizophrenic. To be all things to all people has never worked for any one thing; to reiterate what was wrong with Gap telling US we needed them and displaying why? Consumers appreciate when you are resolute and like 30 years ago we would gladly Fall into the Gap if they were forthcomingand honestabout who they are!
- Communicating change and changing only when necessary is followed by people believing in you. Here’s my story… In Connecticut where I spend many weekends I noticed a Gap on the main drag in a town with cash; now since the awning didn’t say “Baby Gap” or “Womens Gap” I walked in and noticed something was nowhere: namely menswear. After a confusing stroll around baby I mumbled to a clerk “Is something missing?” and she said “Oh yeah we don’t have men’s any longer since it wasn’t selling.” “Well” I said with no joy in my voice “how come you don’t announce that on the front?” She shrugged. It will be a long time before I make a fool out of myself on purpose.
- Just because everyone is doing it doesn’t mean it’s good. I see Gap trying everything under the sun I swear they had Dockers! just because it’s “in” somewhere else. In the advertising industry there’s this fabulous acronym GMOOT or Get Me One of Those when folks obviously do something because someone else has done it well! To go in a direction that’s not right for you because you HAVE to do it even though your heart is not invested has never worked and will be what kills Gap with a stab in the heartless!
- Form over function is not a successful formula for an evolving concern. The stores are trying to be minidiscosyeah yeah there’s national competition from that really cool Hamp;M. But tough. I believe and that coffee chain has proven this that what made a venue successful on day one will be what saves it from doom: Be gutsy and go with the basic nottooshabby look of a place that proffers Just The Essentials Mr. Gap.
- Too Much Information TMI is wrongheaded. Stores and businesses of every ilk forget that mystery is what sucks people in! Why must everyone say everything? Gap has this yucky habit of advertising every charity every new sock every fashion “attitude” they put forth. Dull. Let the customers discover the newest concepts for themselves. Stop shouting your changes to the masses! And while I’m at it every time the financial situation climbs up or falls down Gap screams about it in the media. Quarterly results are finelegally requiredbut when you tell the biz press you’ve failed miserably with multitudes of excuses and promises and changes plastered in news we all see it and think “I’m not going there dude.”
Like uh keep it in your pants. - Going back to what once worked is where businesses run after all the New fails. However it better come with a “mea culpa” or the clientele will laugh and point. I love it when a business throws their hands up with a We’re Wrong and does something bold in a way that makes us secretly go Great. That works. That has never happened at Gap. Every single time this company says they are headed in a new direction they loudly blame it on the economy on “slowing new store sales”. How about we f**ked up. In the postLewinsky post Martha postEnron postWorldCom era I find it utterly refreshing when a company explains their woes asks for forgiveness and like Ford Motor with their hands out shrieks “What’s it going to take to get you to drive this car off the lot today?”
For Gap and companies that can learn a lot from this “crew” all it takes is one deep breath and remembering what made you tremendous to begin with. I know what! They can start a national Don’t Do Laundry Day by Gap! You know I’ll be there.
I’ll use my quarters for the parking.
Laermer is author of “2011: Trendspotting” just out from McGrawHill which has 77 essays like the above; read more at laermer.com.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Richard Laermer is an authority on marketing and media a former reporter who is coauthor of Punk Marketing and writer of the new book 2011: Trendspotting. He’s CEO of New York’s RLM pr representing among others IncrediMail ThisNext Smith Nephew AirPlay Anystream Sky Films Dealighted.com and TutorVista. He was host of TLC’s cult program Taking Care of Business and speaks on trends and marketing for corporate groups. You can read Laermer on huffingtonpost.com/richardlaermer and on the mischievous but all too necessary Bad Pitch Blogbadpitch.blogspot.com
You may also find articles by Richard at TalentZoo.com.
Related posts:
Posted in e-commerce