It's been awhile ... today I'm inspired to write because of two things. Some weirdo girl on MySpace stealing content, and GAP's Skinny Pants campaign.
The Claudia chronicles.
So this girl on MySpace started stealing content, and posted it as her own. She totally plagariazed content from at least three super cool bloggers: Amalah, MetroDad, and Mr Nice Guy. This sucks, and its creepy. She even went so far as to hotlink images from Amalah's site. Anyway, take a few minutes and visit those nice people.
GAP
Two weeks ago, Gap did a "take over" of the Montgomery BART station, with their "Black Skinny Pant" campaign. What this means is that every ad, in the whole station, is for these Skinny Black Pants. The ads usually stay up a month.
I have issues with this...to begin with, nearly the same day these ads went up, the media was running the story that 2/3s of all Americans are either overweight or obese. 66% of us. My first question is - what is GAP thinking? What does this message say to most consumers? It seems to me that it says that GAP isn't catering to 2/3s of the public. But likewise, what is this saying to the public and how they feel about themselves?
The next issue I have is the TV spot. It uses old footage of Audrey Hepburn (or a look alike) meshed with "Back in Black" by AC/DC. They call the pant the "Audrey." I'm sure an executive somewhere is saying "its hip, but classic. its edgy, but timeless. its hard-rocking, but innocent." I think what they're actually saying is "it won't fit most of America. it will appeal to someone who listens to over-played heavy metal now relegated to high school pep rallies, and likes very old romantic movies that harken to a time long gone." or .. We have no idea who we're marketing to, or why.
The Claudia chronicles.
So this girl on MySpace started stealing content, and posted it as her own. She totally plagariazed content from at least three super cool bloggers: Amalah, MetroDad, and Mr Nice Guy. This sucks, and its creepy. She even went so far as to hotlink images from Amalah's site. Anyway, take a few minutes and visit those nice people.
GAP
Two weeks ago, Gap did a "take over" of the Montgomery BART station, with their "Black Skinny Pant" campaign. What this means is that every ad, in the whole station, is for these Skinny Black Pants. The ads usually stay up a month.
I have issues with this...to begin with, nearly the same day these ads went up, the media was running the story that 2/3s of all Americans are either overweight or obese. 66% of us. My first question is - what is GAP thinking? What does this message say to most consumers? It seems to me that it says that GAP isn't catering to 2/3s of the public. But likewise, what is this saying to the public and how they feel about themselves?
The next issue I have is the TV spot. It uses old footage of Audrey Hepburn (or a look alike) meshed with "Back in Black" by AC/DC. They call the pant the "Audrey." I'm sure an executive somewhere is saying "its hip, but classic. its edgy, but timeless. its hard-rocking, but innocent." I think what they're actually saying is "it won't fit most of America. it will appeal to someone who listens to over-played heavy metal now relegated to high school pep rallies, and likes very old romantic movies that harken to a time long gone." or .. We have no idea who we're marketing to, or why.
2 Comments:
Actually, I was thinking they were saying, "The only people who will fit in these jeans are girls too young to be dressed like this, let alone be able to afford it. To make the parents footing the bill feel better, Look Audrey would have LOVED these! And don't you want your daughter to have a love story?" Patricksbride
Good point ... they could be going after the parents, who's fathers loved AC/DC and who's mothers would get weepy over Audrey. Or, perhaps, that is actually their grandparents by this point. The BART stop here is in the midst of the Financial District, so this would be a key place where parents come and go for work. It's weird when companies market to influencers (parents), not their actual demographic.
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