The Gap Bows to Outcry, Retains Classic Logo

In today’s fickle and ever-changing marketplace, established brands make concerted efforts to keep their brands dynamic and relevant to quickly shifting tastes. Often, rather than evaluate the product and customer-service attributes that define a company or brand, executives for said entities opt for a logo change to try to raise their public profiles. However, these often misguided attempts betray a palpable desperation comparable to a slumping baseball player at the plate who’s behind no balls and two strikes and chasing a wayward breaking ball in a futile attempt to reach base.

The Gap falling behind in thehighly competitive arena of retail clothing stores , tried (and, by many accounts, failed) to increase brand cache by developing new logos.Unveiled on October 7, the Gap replaced its erstwhile logo – elongated, serifed letters encased within a blue square – with sterile, black, Helvetica letters and a small, blue square wedged around the “p” In the company name.

Negative reactions quickly cascaded through cyberspace. Numerous retail-, business- and fashion-related news sites and blogs decried the change. According to www.adrants.com, 88% of those who took its survey disapproved of the change. In response, the company pulled the new logo Monday night and will retain the familiar, blue-backed logo across all channels.

As reported on www.cnnmoney.com, Marka Hansen, president of Gap North America, said, "We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we’re clear we didn’t go about this the right away. There may be a time to evolve our logo, but, if and when that time comes, we’ll do it the right way."