23
2010
Case Study: Should GAP have kept their logo? Should Woolies have given in?
An article by 
GAP, the iconic clothing retailer that quietly introduced a new logo on its website, retracted the logo due to a public outcry. Should it have done so?
Much as I hate to say it, the decision to retract the logo was the right one. But, although I am a fan of crowdsourcing (using the crowds input to drive decisions or achieve some other goal) I feel that brands need to draw a line between how and when they react to a public outcry.
The reason is simple: no brand will ever be able to please everybody, and people are always far more likely to complain en masse than to compliment en masse.
When GAP listened to the complainers – there were about 2,000 negative comments left on its Facebook page, it effectively set a very dangerous precedence and gave up control over a process which it should control fully.
Certainly, GAP could have handled things better from the start. It could have given people some warning that the logo was about to change. It could have asked for input. It could have given the public to vote for their favourite logo out of a shortlist (this would have been a marketers dream!) or it could have simply just done a better job of the new design.
That it did none of these things is unfortunate, and in this case resulted in what I believe was a really bad logo choice. But executives run companies, not the consumers. Yes. The executives.
I remember when Pick ‘n Pay launched their new logo in South Africa…pretty much everyone on Twitter (which was quite a novelty for South Africans at the time) expressed their disgust. We all hated it. And now? I don’t give it a second thought, and certainly have no feelings of dislike when I see the logo today.
I wonder what would have happened if 2,000 South Africans protested the new Pick ‘n Pay logo, and management reversed to the old one? I believe Pick ‘n Pay would be worse off today.
Of course, the consumers have every right to complain, and every right to be listened to. The consumers can, through consistent behaviour and communication, send a clear message to the executives to what they like, what they don’t like, or what they feel can be improved. And the executives are responsible for listening clearly to the consumer.
And this where the process for the GAP logo fell apart. The executives had not really listened to their consumers, and underestimated the iconic value of the brand. They should be penalised for that, in the boardroom.
The 2,000 people who protested the new GAP logo represent a small base of GAP’s $3.8 billion turnover. But, in America, people are used to being listened to, and I don’t think that this fight would have gone away quietly. GAP management assessed the risk of continuing with the logo against the risk of continued social media anti-GAP drive, and decided to cut their losses and retreat quickly. As a result, the PR fallout was minimised and seems to be all but forgotten.
Contrast this with the latest Woolworths saga, where they reversed the decision to discontinue sales of certain Christian magazines.
The decision to discontinue the magazine sales was an excellent one, based on business principles and a rational reaction to expected consumer sentiments: the magazines were not selling successfully, which means consumers did not want them.
The consumer outcry was driven by religious sentiment, and Woolworths caved in. It makes no logical/business sense for why it should have done so, or what it gained in the process. I do not believe that the “protesters” would have been able to galvanize themselves into a movement, online or off, that would have impacted Woolworths, their reputation for excellence, or their bottom line.
Does management think they came across as Progressive Communicators? If so, they have fallen into the trap of allowing consumers to dictate, and not to dialogue.
A scary precedence.
