Logos: Iconic Gap Logo Takes Back Its Place

Any young aspiring designer who hoped to be the winner in an eventual crowdsourcing project by Gap is disappointed today: there will be no contest, there will be no change, or better said, a change has been made, that brings back Gap’s iconic logo.

Marka Hansen, who three days back defended the monstruosity that triggered so much noise, decided that the new Gap logo was not that loved internally. The decision to revert to the original logo received the expected explanation: the company listened to its consumers. And there’s something more:

“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. This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing.”

The project, in fact, is right for crowdsourcing, but is it necessary? Gap is in serious need of healthy PR, and this social experiment is not it. Customers will not buy more clothes just because they see a new logo, especially not when the new logo is so many miles away from the core values that made the company famous in the past.

Gap has to find a more exciting way to engage its target market. A “mea culpa” will not do either. In fact, there will be enough voices affirming that Gap only played a dirty PR trick to get media attention. The scenario is simple: come up with something so horrifying that the consumers just have to react. Wait a few days for the buzz to catch, then pretend to give a damn about the feedback and say something like:

“At Gap brand, our customers have always come first. We’ve been listening to and watching all of the comments this past week. We heard them say over and over again they are passionate about our blue box logo, and they want it back. So we’ve made the decision to do just that – we will bring it back across all channels.”

Make sure that, instead of using the HuffPo to spread your message, you use a more traditional approach this time: a press release distribution ezine, like BusinessWire for example.

In the end, all the back and forth about Gap’s new logo was nothing but noise. It will not improve Gap’s sales quota, nor its stock value. Then what would? In all honesty, I do have a few ideas, but business is business, if you know what I mean.

Gap has used PR agencies including KCD Worldwide, Edelman Worldwide and others.