August 28, 2005Moment of brilliance or another Gap blunder? |
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Gap is making headlines right now with their daring and noteworthy 60-second spot in which employees and customers trash one of the stores: "Pardon our dust; the all-new Gap is coming."
I went to their website and saw "an under construction" message.
There are 3 scenarios in play here:
1) The site is under construction and has nothing to do with their TV campaign and/or store renovations
2) The online temporary closure is completely intentional and is designed to tie-in directly with the current campaign and in doing so, raise curiosity/intrigue about the changes (lord knows they need 'em)
As much as I wish the latter option were true, I know it's not for probably 3 reasons:
1) Practically....because of the e-commerce component (no one's going to close doors on sales, although if bricks 'n mortar stores are closing, why not the Web?)
2) The ad isn't national yet and even if it were...it would have to assume that people are watching TV ads (don't get me started on that) That being said, with a huge PR buzz, it could easily negate this particular challenge.
3) I just don't think the folks at Gap are remotely clued in with how their business is changing and it what it will take to reverse their steep declines of late (sorry)
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» Gap.com shutdown doesn't make sense from Shig Odani Blog
Gap.com and Oldnavy.com (both owned by Gap Inc.) have been down for about a week now, I believe. When you visit gap.com, you're presented with this message (left). The strange thing is that when you're editing a site in any [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 2, 2005 12:40:57 PM
» Gap.com shutdown doesn't make sense from Shig Odani Blog
Gap.com and Oldnavy.com (both owned by Gap Inc.) have been down for about a week now, I believe. When you visit gap.com, you're presented with this message (left). The strange thing is that when you're editing a site in any [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 13, 2005 10:42:52 AM
Comments
Agree with your skepticism on this being an intentional tie in. At least if is an 'integrated' effort, shouldn't the web portion be at least as daring and unconventional as the TV spot?
It's hard to believe that a company of this size has just shut down their site. Can't imagine Amazon or Yahoo doing that.
Posted by: Doug Schumacher
May by a little off the topic, but Gap is doing a co-promotion with iTunes now. I think in the month of August, you get a free download from iTunes if you just try on a pair of Gap jeans. Kind of cool.
Posted by: Shig
