As reported by Thomas Mucha in Business 2.0, Gap's Sarah Jessica Parker endorsement deal has come to an end and Joss Stone will step in to try and reverse the tide of declining sales.
The reasons given sound logical enough, except I wonder how long it's going to take for GAP to realize that the answer doesn't like in exchanging an actor for a singer, but rather in exchanging old marketing for new marketing...
The correlation between SJP and Sales is downright horrible:
- A month after the campaign launched, total September sales at Gap dipped 1 percent
- Same-store sales that month fell 3 percent
- Two months later same-store sales slid another 3 percent
- In December -- the crucial holiday month -- sales were down 1 percent
- Then in January they tumbled 9 percent
- February's figures were off 3 percent
...but don't pin the blame on Sarah, the real donkeys are the marketing folk at GAP who refuse to concede that perhaps it's their reliance on 30-second spots that are creating the disconnect, not the ability for Peoria to relate to Soho.
"Borrowed interest" is so not original and if Gap really wants to communicate/associate/or be associated with "fashion, fun, and a strong sense of individual style" why have to use a celebrity as a crutch? If you think about it, it's a clear admission that the brand/company is anything but...., hence the need to borrow interest from existing equity.
"Pretty Khaki" the final straw in the campaign was so overplayed that I can recall a minimum of 25 times that I hit the TiVo button the nanosecond the commercial began.
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