Last week The Gap revealed their new logo.
More than 1,000 “friends” left disparaging remarks on their Facebook page.
Today Gap announced, the old logo would return. They took a page from the new Coke old Coke playbook. Oops. They didn’t know you loved their old brand so much.
Lessons we can learn from Gap:
1. If you change your name/logo and there’s no outcry from your members, you’re in trouble.
2. The logo is not your brand – but it is the symbol of recognition of your reputation. Gap had 20 years of solid reputation and a very basic logo. Why mess with that?
3. Be careful what you wish for – when you beg for friends on Facebook, you better listen to them.
The 2020 Vision of Marketing 
8 comments
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October 12, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Dale
I think they cleverly did it just to draw attention and gain free advertising. They certainly have gained it on the t.v. news here! Not sure they even intended to stay with the new logo.
October 12, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Denise Wymore
Dale,
That’s a great point – I mean that “new” logo looks like a joke. Hey – let’s change the font and put the blue box in the corner.
October 12, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Dbkayanda
Just think. Somewhere, at some design house, there’s a team that worked hard on that design. That’s probably not a project they’re going to put on their resumes. (And they may be polishing up those resumes, in fact.)
dbk
October 12, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Denise Wymore
So when an agency really screws up – do they give the money back? What would Don Draper do?
October 12, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Diana Windley
I’m old enough to remember the really old GAP logo…Yikes! (Remember those early 80s-style fonts???)
I wonder if GAP’s ad agency/graphic design team did any market research on the existing logo?
As a marketer, I get tired of looking at our logo, color scheme, etc and want to change it up just for variety sake. But our members aren’t looking at the logo 24/7 like those of us in the marketing department. Especially in today’s economy, consumers probably associate stability and security with a familiar logo that has been around for decades.
October 13, 2010 at 6:51 am
Terry Young
Hmmm….Wondering if they tested the new logo. Research? Focus Groups? If they didn’t, shame on GAP. If they did, how was the research different from the public reaction? Was it a bad polling group? Or did GAP ignore research? Or do they just need a new public????
More questions than answers. Articles seem to address the major fail…a collective “HA-HA” (from Springfield’s elementary school bully Dolph on the Simpsons)…but inquiring minds want to know: WTF?
October 13, 2010 at 8:29 am
Kris
Didn’t this happen to Starbuck’s a couple of years ago? I remember a brief change in the logo to a brown mermaid who was “provocative” (ooh, you can see her mer-boobs!) and it causing a big ruckus. Within days the old logo was back. I rather liked the new one and was sad to see the backslide.
I think the only time that change is really welcomed is when something sucked to begin with. But if we follow the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” mentality how do we innovate? Not that an ugly logo is innovation, but it definitely begs that question.
October 13, 2010 at 8:34 am
Denise Wymore
Kris,
Starbucks brought back the original logo to celebrate a milestone anniversary – and yes, it did create quite a ruckus. If you want to see her mer-boobs, you can go to the original store on Pike Street in Seattle where she displays them proudly.
Cheers!
D.