Last week, Gap unveiled their new logo after ditching their iconic blue box logo that represented their brand for over 20 years. Of course, as you’ve heard by now, this logo change came with much criticism from consumers, brand enthusiasts, advertisers, creative’s, you name it… someone had something to say about it. So much so that the President of Gap, Marka Hansen felt the need to address the feedback in a blog posted on the Huffington Post after day 1 of the unveiling; even asking for design input on their Facebook page.
Well, today the logo change heard around the world will take another turn in this saga. That’s right; Gap has announced that they will be going back to their beloved original blue box logo not even a week after changing it. I have to say, this takes major guts to make this move – basically admitting to your loyal customers that you made a mistake. And Gap did make that admission. In an updated statement by Marka Hansen, she apologizes and says “We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community.”
I’ve also got to hand it to Gap for putting their customers first and ditching what probably took years of planning and thousands, if not millions of dollars for the cost to redesign the logo. Many companies would look at the time and money invested (or in this case, wasted) and move forward with the change and instead, implement a PR or advertising strategy to smooth things over. However, at the same time, I have to wonder why a brand with so much equity in their logo would change it in the first place. Their rational was that just like their products evolve, their logo should evolve too. Evolve? Sure. But this so called evolution was just a complete change. Gap should’ve taken notes from pages of brands like Coke, Nike, BMW who’ve mastered the art of brand evolution. We’ll see how the regression sits with everyone this week and if consumers will be so forgiving. My prediction? Gap will be forgiven… but not without a tiny bit of resentment.
For more information on the Gap logo saga, read the Oct 11, 2010 article on the topic at AdAge.com.
