Social media has the power to affect corporate decisions in sometimes surprising ways. Clothing retailer, The Gap, quietly introduced a new logo to replace its 20-year old “blue box” logo, and they turned to the online design community to “crowdsource” promotional ideas for the brand. But what they actually got was a flood of negative criticism on Facebook and Twitter over the lackluster replacement logo.
Marketing Week is referring to the episode as the “Gap logo debacle.” Our opinion? Well, it certainly made the company look foolish in some marketing and design circles. But the average Gap customer probably doesn’t have any clue that they were even considering changing the logo. And most of those customers could care less about The Gap’s logo choices. (We know it’s important. But the concept of “brand equity” doesn’t mean much to the average Joe who just wants to buy some khaki pants.)
So, in a way, you could see a bright side to The Gap’s blunder. Social media critics helped prevent the company from releasing a poor decision into the marketplace.
