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LAS VEGAS — Gap Inc. might be undergoing one of the most-watched turnarounds in retail right now under relative newcomer Richard Dickson, who took over the top spot in August two years ago.
He entered a company with a lot of murky challenges and no clear solutions in sight. Nineteen months later, the retailer is seeing progress at its core brands and took market share for the eighth straight quarter. His first step was looking at Gap’s past.
“Every brand had an origin story and I think it’s important to understand what was that origin story,” Dickson said in a keynote discussion at Shoptalk. “What made it so interesting or great to begin with?”
According to Dickson, Gap’s reason for being all comes back to originality. The executive stressed that the company’s role is to help shoppers cultivate their own style versus dictate how they should use its clothing. That concept was also behind Gap campaigns from various eras that feature icons of the time wearing its products. Madonna, Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliott were just a few of the featured celebrities, and several of those portraits now hang at Gap’s store in the Flatiron District in New York City, Dickson said.
“It was really an expressive portrayal of their original style wearing Gap,” Dickson said of the campaign. “So celebrating that heritage — because it looks as relevant as ever today putting those iconic portraits up in the store — but who are the originals of today and tomorrow? How do we perpetuate that legacy by creating narratives around today’s influencers, today’s cultural curators, today’s artists and original thinkers?”
To that end, Gap has been working to insert itself back into the cultural conversation in recent years, including through several dance-focused ads with the likes of Troye Sivan and Parker Posey. That’s an intentional focus, given Gap’s history of music-based marketing, but it’s also about making sure the Gap brand feels relevant again.
“If you’re relevant enough it eventually drives revenue,” Dickson said.
As the architect of Barbie’s turnaround, he should know.
Gap has also pursued a series of other efforts, including vintage drops and a subbrand led by Zac Posen. But it’s not the only brand in Gap’s stable that needs work. Dickson is also working on changes at Old Navy, mostly to balance out the focus on promotions versus product on its site. While price is important to the Old Navy shopper, Dickson emphasized that it also should be “fun and consumer-oriented.”
“Nobody wants to do math,” Dickson said, noting that Old Navy had too many promotions that created too much work for shoppers to do. “That’s not a fun experience when you walk into a store and you’re trying to figure out actually how much am I spending.”