ETD: 911 GAP 'Viral' Online Ad; Build Your Brand Online;
Creating a New Luxury Brand
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Aug 11 02:31:44 GMT 2005
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0911 August 11, 2005
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] GAP 'Viral' Online Ad
[3] Build Your Brand Online
[4] Creating a New Luxury Brand
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
Today's digest is on building a brand online. Dr Kevin Nunley has an
informative piece on online building. I have worked with Kevin on some
projects, and can say he is quite good at what he does.
My favorite is the new GAP site, that nobody knows is the GAP's, unless
somebody like me told you. They are doing a great viral marketing program,
which I think is a test of things to come. The WSJ thought it was neat,
and had a big article on it.
Pam Danziger has an article and a free report on building a new luxury
brand. Pam is a guru in the luxury market and always has informative
information.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] GAP 'Viral' Online Ad
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Hi:
Yesterday's WSJ reports on a new site from GAP Stores (the other GAP) which
shows a virtual changing of clothes. It's a riot and the latest thing in
viral marketing. You pick male or female, then decide on your shape, hair
color, et.al. Then you pick what clothes you want (the model starts out in
undies). The model comes out with the clothes on walking a catwalk. Then
when you select "preview" the model does a strip to music.
What's interesting is this is not being advertised anywhere. The WSJ
picked it up, and curious people went to the site, where you can send it to
a friend. Eventually the whole world knows about it - true viral marketing!
I think viral marketing is wonderful, and does work both on- and
off-line. Do you use it?
The site is at www.watchmechange.com and here's the article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112362898461709220,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
After years of celebrity-studded ad campaigns -- and mixed results -- Gap
is now reaching out to young, hard-to-impress shoppers with a new Web site
that lets visitors be voyeurs as an animated character performs a
tongue-in-cheek striptease that Gap describes as "PG-rated."
Called watchmechange.com, the site first guides shoppers through steps to
create a computer likeness of themselves, down to hair style, eye color and
chest size. With a few clicks of a mouse, the computer model -- which can
be male or female -- sheds its clothes down to undergarments and dances
furiously while tinny disco music plays. Then the model retreats into a
dressing room and comes out, still strutting, in a new outfit of the
viewer's choosing.
Gap's new online promotion lets viewers create characters that boogey to
disco music as they take off, and put on, clothes.
The unusual ad effort is somewhat stealth in its approach. Gap isn't doing
anything to advertise the Web site, and the San Francisco company's logo
flashes onscreen for only a few seconds. The site doesn't offer any clothes
for purchase, either, although visitors can create an animated character
and email it to a friend. "Meet me in the back of Gap," teases the
accompanying message to recipients.
Gap is hoping that people will stumble onto the site and pass the word on
to others -- an advertising technique known as viral marketing. The ad
agency behind the online antics, Crispin Porter + Bogusky LLC in Miami,
also created the wildly popular "Subservient Chicken" Web site for Burger
King earlier this year. Viewers at that site were able to command a virtual
man in a chicken suit to peck and move around. According to the ad agency,
the Subservient Chicken site attracted more than 16.5 million unique
visitors as of the end of July.
The Gap promotion is a surprising departure for the mainstream brand, which
lately has been billed by Chief Executive Paul Pressler as being about
"fresh, casual American style."
"What it's trying to say is, you think you know us, but we can be pretty
bold, too," says Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a New
York-based consulting firm that isn't working with Gap on the promotion.
Early reviews are mixed. Comments circulating on the Internet show that
some people find it a great way to waste time at the office; others are
uncomfortable watching it. "My immediate reaction is definitely negative,"
says Lauren Schmidt, a 28-year-old account director at a technology
public-relations firm in New York City. While it won't stop her from buying
the chain's clothes, she says, "I have always regarded Gap as more tactful
than that."
Gap's Web characters are definitely saucier than those used by other
clothing retailers, such as L.L. Bean and Sears Holdings Corp.'s Lands'
End. Figures at those company sites aim to replicate shoppers'
measurements, or body shapes, in order to help ensure a proper garment fit.
The watchmechange site also sets a very different tone from Gap's current
advertising campaign in stores and on television, which features a parade
of musicians such as Joss Stone, Liz Phair and Jason Mraz. In the TV
commercials, developed by the retailer's creative agency, Laird+Partners,
the singers wear Gap jeans and perform remakes of their favorite songs.
The company has long paraded celebrities past the camera for its campaigns,
but the strategy has produced spotty results in recent years. In the fall
of 2002, Gap gathered performers from a wide range of ages and backgrounds
-- it even recruited Willie Nelson -- to star in its "For Every Generation"
advertisements. Although Gap's sales began to recover that October, the
company later decided that the ads didn't focus specifically enough on its
target customers, men and women between ages 20 and 30.
The following year, Gap asked singers Madonna and Missy Elliott to appear
in TV commercials wearing Gap corduroys and diamond jewelry. The spots sold
a lot of corduroys, with many customers asking to have the letter "M"
embroidered on their back pockets to match the performers' pants. Yet
overall, Gap acknowledged, the ads didn't bring as many customers into
stores as the company had expected.
For its recent fall, holiday and spring ad campaigns, Gap signed actress
Sarah Jessica Parker of the HBO series "Sex and the City." Jeff Jones,
Gap's head of advertising, described the customer response to Ms. Parker,
who mixed Gap clothes with designer accessories for the promotions, as
"amazing."
But monthly sales at stores open at least a year -- a key measurement --
have improved against prior-year figures only three times since May 2004.
Gap ended its contract with Ms. Parker after the spring, saying it always
had planned for the relationship to be temporary.
The link between advertising and sales can be murky, and Gap's
self-professed design woes, particularly in its women's merchandise, are
certainly holding down sales. Mr. Pressler recently said the retailer erred
by producing designs for work, weekend and special occasions that were too
different from one another, confusing customers. For the fall and holiday
seasons, Gap has adjusted some of its merchandise, focusing on brighter
colors and clean, classic looks.
The company is also working on its store image and design, which had become
androgynous and stale. In April, Gap opened seven remodeled stores in the
Denver area. Designed to be more inviting than the old traditional white
box, the new stores have warmer wood floors and a lounge area to encourage
lingering and mingling. Customer response has been good so far, Gap says,
and it plans to remodel more stores in the same format.
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[3] Build Your Brand Online
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Dr. Kevin Nunley writes some excellent tips on marketing. Here's a piece
on building a brand...
During lean times, nothing helps bring in consistent sales like a good,
solid brand. The power of your brand-- your business' name and the clarity
it conveys your most important benefits--can be the most valuable marketing
tool you have.
Here are some ways to establish and strengthen your brand.
Come up with three ideas you want visitors to remember when they leave your
web site. It could be your low price, your broad selection, your deep
expertise, or even your friendly face.
I like to hit visitors with your idea right from the beginning. The first
words on your opening web page should tell people the three things you want
them to remember about you.
Then use your three ideas consistently from page to page. These main ideas
should be reflected and reinforced . After someone has spent five minutes
on your site, they should have your three benefits firmly implanted in
their mind.
Also consider the tone your brand takes. Does the mood and message of your
site tell people you are enthusiastic, serious, caring, or
ruthless? Depending on your audience, any of these things could be a
powerful reason to buy from you.
Dr. Kevin Nunley
Build your brand with Five Package promotion deal now 75% off for a limited
time to anyone
reading this article. See http://drnunley.com/123.asp
Get thousands and millions of interested eyeballs
focused on YOU. Reach Kevin at mailto:kevin at drnunley.com
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[4] Creating a New Luxury Brand
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As ‘new luxury’ replaces ‘old luxury’ in the consumer marketplace, luxury
marketers must embrace a new luxury branding paradigm to build and sustain
their luxury brand. Marketers can’t rely anymore simply upon creating the
‘best of the best’ product to capture the attention of today’s new luxury
consumer.
The bar has been raised in the ‘new luxury’ market. It isn’t enough
anymore to just design a fabulous, luxurious product and offer it as the
ultimate luxury. Luxury marketers have to do more. They must enhance the
luxury experience that the product promises to deliver.
Through research among luxury consumers (incomes of $75,000 or more,
representing the top 25 percent of U.S. households) and profiles of ‘new
luxury’ marketers, including American Express, KitchenAid, Starwood
Properties, Polo Ralph Lauren and Crystal Cruises, Let Them Eat Cake offers
specific, actionable advice to marketers about building a new luxury brand.
The ‘New Luxury’ Branding Paradigm
‘New luxury’ marketers must focus on the experience for the consumer —
how their product or service delivers a feeling of luxury throughout the
entire buying and consumption process. “Superior quality still counts, but
a lot more than just great product is expected from the luxuries people
buy,” says Danziger. The keys to building a ‘new luxury’ brand boil down
to a few ideas:
o A luxury brand must be expansive: It must be a big idea that gives the
marketer new places to venture and new opportunities to meet in the
consumers’ personal life. There are no instant luxury brands and the truly
great ones have been around for decades, even a century. They keep
reinventing themselves over and over again. Burberry, for example, was
founded in 1856, yet it is one of the hottest luxury brands today.
o A luxury brand must tell a story: Story telling is a fundamental way
human’s transmit and process information. Brand recognition is no
substitute for brand connection and it’s through brand stories where
consumers can connect. It through brand story telling that corporate
strategy connects with the consumer. Polo Ralph Lauren’s brand embodies
totally different worlds or stories presented through their different
product lines that the customer can try on and become part of.
o A luxury brand must be relevant to the consumers’ needs: A luxury brand
must be relevant to consumers needs, meeting their passions and desires
emotionally and physically. And a luxury brand must stay relevant as
luxury consumers’ needs change, thus the necessity to have an expansive
brand that gives marketers room to grow. For example, Unity Marketing’s
research has shown that the luxury dining experience is primarily defined
by the service personnel, the atmosphere, and the way customers are treated
in the dining roo! m. Fine food, on the other hand, is simply taken for
granted. This finding has huge implications for the restaurateur who
devotes 80 percent of his or her time to what is happening in the
kitchen. Rather, to align their restaurant with the luxury expectations of
the consumer, they should be spending 80 percent of their effort on the
dining room.
o A luxury brand must align with consumers’ values: Consumers are
bringing a new sensibility into the marketplace that is about more than
having and getting. They want their consumerism to provide a greater
meaning and they are looking to ‘do good’ when they shop. A new magazine
called Plenty is written for a socially-responsible and
ecologically-conscious consumer, who values the finer things in life, like
organic food, designer clothes and elegant furniture made from sustainable
reso! urces. Plenty presents an editorial point of view that celebrates
‘plenty,’ not in the sense of luxurious, over-the-top living, but ‘plenty’
as reflected in a plentiful lifestyle based upon making the right choices
in terms of our planet’s natural resources.
o A luxury brand must perform for the consumer: The experience of a
luxury brand all comes down to how well the brand performs its experiential
duties for the customer. If it makes him or her feel wonderful, special,
unique, as well as performing its specific material role or purpose
wonderfully, whether it be a cooking pan, an evening dress, a set of
sheets, or a new PDA, then it meets the consumers’ performance
expectations. It is luxury. Performance, therefore, becomes the new ‘P’
in the luxury marketing and b! randing equation.
“The Six Myths of Luxury Branding — How to Build a ‘New Luxury’ Brand” is
available free with registration at
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/downloadPDF2.php
Pam Danziger,
President
Unity Marketing
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