Analyze Errors Accurately

Clothing retailer Gap Inc. erred. The company announced they were unveiling a new logo, the reaction was monumentally negative, and within a week, Gap made another announcement: They were keeping the old logo with GAP in all caps on a blue rectangle. The new logo with Gap in upper-and-lower case and the blue rectangle off in a corner was banished.

     As the dust settled, trade periodical Advertising Age reported the Gap explanation of what happened. Part of what Gap said illustrates lessons correctly learned, in my opinion. The rest strikes me as either a public relations deflection of responsibility or a genuine misunderstanding of the causes. Either way, the incident serves as a reminder to analyze retailing errors accurately.

• Accept the facts. The new Gap logo was almost universally panned by consumers as badly designed. Yet the company attributed the problem to the logo introduction being, “one change too many,” following new product mix, merchandising scheme, and store design initiatives.
• Be aware of the state of mind of the business over the duration of the error. In the open minds state, all sorts of input is welcomed, realizing it’s always easier to tame down an unrealistic idea than to try to make the same old ideas exciting. In the open roads state, people in the business cut back on the brainstorming, critically evaluate what they’ve got, develop plans based on what’s most

  

  likely to work for the long-term, and move on ahead for a while with minimum distractions. The open wounds state occurs when the bad news floods in so fast that you must take decisive steps; you might ask others for ideas, but your focus is on short-term bandages. The origins of errors differ among these three states.
• Take note of the stumbles as you recover. After a couple of days of complaints, Gap said they’d invite the public to design the new logo. That caused an uproar among professional design firms, at which point Gap withdrew the offer, although consumers did go ahead on their own to generate over 300 suggestions along with critical reviews.
• Isolate the factors to the degree possible. When update of the Sun-Maid Raisin girl was announced late last year, the trademarked brand symbol on product boxes from Sun-Maid Growers of California stayed the same. Only in advertising did the Sun-Maid Raisin girl take on the new look.

Click below for more:

Be Creative, But Only Sometimes
Keep Your Store’s Dress Codes in Fashion