Brand Audit for Gap

GAP

Brand Management

Tan Zi Xuan

15035835 BMKT

Executive Summary

Gap is an American apparel brand that founded by Don Fisher. It has successfully become a well-known brand in a short time. It only took less than a decade to go public and listed on New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. Gap provides almost all clothing products which includes t-shirt, sweater, jeans and etc. Being part of the highly competitive industry, Gap has few direct competitors which are Zara, H&M and etc. Therefore, to stand out from its competitors, Gap should come out with a set of marketing strategy that fulfil the market’s needs and demands.

History

Gap is a stylish American apparel retailer. The founders of Gap are Doris and Don Fisher, the reason why they started the business is just because Don Fisher could not find a pair of jeans that fits him. The first ever Gap store located in San Francisco, California, in 1969. In the early days, Gap store not only selling Levi Strauss merchandise but also tapes and records but the music sales stopped after 6 months. In two years’ time after the first store located, Gap Inc managed to reach 2.5millions annually.

3 years before Gap Inc went public, Gap’s stores started to provide own label’s products to consumers to avoid several company’s dangers due to Levi Strauss & Co was their only supplier. In 1976, Don Fisher was ready to make their business goes public and listed on New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges.  

By the end of 1970s, Gap own labelled products were enables to generate 45% of total sales which was an achievement back in the time due to the early of 1970s, Gap generated sales totally based on Levi Strauss’s jeans.

In 1983, Don Fisher hired Millard Drexler as the president of Gap Inc, who started company transformation by eliminating all private label brands except Gap. Drexler wanted consumers to know that Gap stores is no longer a store which provides Levi’s jeans but their own label products. In the meantime, Gap Inc has acquired Banana Republic, which is a two-stores chain of safari and travel clothing outfits. 3 years later, Drexler made the debut of GapKids for fulfilling the demands of baby boomer generation and the concept was a massive success. By 1987, Gap Inc located their first oversea store in London, United Kingdom.

In 1990, as GapKids brought a huge success to Gap Inc, Gap Inc started a new venture, babyGap which provides services and products to infants and toddlers. Meanwhile, in 1994, Drexler founded Old Navy, which is another subsidiary from Gap Inc. 3 years later, Gap Inc debuts their official website to public (N.A, 2003)

Public Ownership

Although Don Fisher decided to make his business went public, Fisher’s family remains deeply involved with the company which still holding more than 40% shares in the Gap Inc (N.A, 2017). Before Don Fisher died, he set up a program named Teach For American, which provides teacher to those American who never been to school or educated, and donated millions us dollars into the program and to KPP foundation which creates college preparatory charted schools for the low incomes areas. After his dead, Robert J. Fisher succeeded his father as Gap Inc chairman in 2004 (Bruce Weber, 2009).  

Brand Product Portfolio[pic 1]

[pic 2][pic 3][pic 4][pic 5][pic 6][pic 7][pic 8][pic 9][pic 10][pic 11]

[pic 12][pic 13][pic 14][pic 15][pic 16][pic 17][pic 18][pic 19][pic 20]

Gap has 5 products lines which are women clothing, men clothing, children clothing, babies clothing and accessories. Gap offers casual and formal clothing for both women and men, other than clothing, Gap also provides shoes and accessories like jewelry, perfumes, and many more. Women clothing is the most prominent products among all Gap products and account slightly less than 60% for brand revenue.

Brand Elements

Logo: To make it simple and can be easily recognised by consumers, Gap Inc came up with a logo which is a distinguishing symbol, solid blue square and the capital letters. Trademarked in 1972, the logo made its first appearance on products was on 1974.  In Oct 2010, Gap Inc introduced their new logo to the market, a solid blue square went into a blue cube which fallen on the right side of the capital letters. The appearance of the new logo did not accept by the public and at the last, Gap Inc decided to revert to its previous logo (Hamilton Nolan, 2010).

Jingle: In 1973, Gap debuts his iconic jingle, “Fall into the Gap” which customers still remember today. The memorable tune was used in advertising campaigns for decades and will imbibed in customers’ heart eternally. (GAP, 2012)

Packaging: To be more identical to the brand logo, Gap Inc applies to use blue paper bag with alphabet G, A, P on it which appears to be white in colour. The packaging for Gap is recognisable, but still, there is a problem for them to cut down the usage of plastic and papers for the packages, which Gap Inc should do it more environmentally.

Slogan: One of the slogans for Gap is ‘Dress Normal’ which is used in 2014. The message of the slogan is to appeal that customers should dress normal and be the authentic self and be more confidents. (Tom Silva, 2014)

Marketing Mix

Product

Throughout the years, Gap has grown from a single store to worldwide fashion brand. Besides that, Gap’s products have always been guaranteed by the quality and premium. Despite most of the competitors are having fast fashion retailing, Gap revives the 90’s fashion and bringing back all the old school favourites which are classic and quality. With the lack of new fashion designs, Gap failed to retain some of their customers who are unlikely to purchase the same old stuff from Gap. Although some of their customers get bored with products, still, there are customers who are willing to pay for the quality product and the classic design. Facing the fast-fashion threat, Gap need to stay calm and continue to provide the premium products as they did before.

Pricing

By providing premium and quality products, Gap products’ price range is from MYR 18 to around MYR 600. Gap believes in offering premium product in low prices. Although compare to others brands like H&M, Gap’s products are relatively more expensive but when it comes to high-end luxury brand like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, Gap products are much more cheaper.

In a nutshell, Gap has been successfully provided high quality and premium products at an affordable price, by making sure that the products are price-worthy.