Another Facebook suicide, brought to you by Gap

Within a month Gap managed to upset the majority of its customers twice, how?

Last month, as some of you probably know, Gap launched its new logo as an update to its 20-year old predecessor.

New logo

Customers did not like it at all and some of them stormed social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to tell friends and the company just how they feel about the new logo.

More than 2,000 comments were posted on the company's Facebook page on the issue, with many demanding the return of the traditional logo. Some of the customers said: "This is the worst idea Gap has ever had. I will be sad to see this change take place", or "If this logo is brought into the clothing [store] I will no long[er] be shopping with the Gap. Really a bummer because 90% of my clothing has been purchased there in the last 15+ years."

What Gap did then was to post a message on its FB page that said they were planning to ask people to share their designs with them for the new logo. The result of all this, so far, is that Gap returned to its classic logo, this one:

Old logo

Not happy about this logo switcharoo that set the internet ablaze Gap, on November 5^th, caused a commotion in the location-based marketing world with a campaign to give away 10,000 free pairs of jeans at U.S. Gap locations.

The idea was actually good but the execution very poor. The Gap Free Jeans Giveaway Event was fairly simple on the surface. A public Facebook Event (I suggest you look at it as some comments are hilarious) invited customers to “check-in” at any U.S. Gap location using Facebook Places. Customers were instructed to show their “check-ins” on their mobile devices to any Gap employee to receive a free pair of jeans.

Ten thousand jeans might seem a big number but not that big if you think how many stores Gap has (i think about 2500 in US) so jeans went quickly and lots of people were only given a 40% discount voucher instead as the policy was first-come first-serve basis. All disappointed customers ended up complaining on Facebook of course but mainly because they had no clue about what “check-in” means and most of them just wrote the word “check-in” on the FB page wall.

Though this comes as no surprise.  According to the Pew Research Center, only 4% of Americans use location-based applications like Places, Foursquare, and Gowalla, and only 1% of Internet users are using these services.

This will go down as another example of how NOT to use social media but hopefully Gap learnt the lesson. They have started a new campaign recently which aims to donate $1 for every “like”. Let’s keep an eye on it…;)