Talk to the Moose

Earlier this week I was visiting with a client and catching up on the good and the bad in retail advertising this holiday season, bringing us to a lengthy discussion about The Gap.

The only way you’ve missed The Gap’s Cheer Factory campaign this season is if you’ve stayed indoors without turning on your TV, checking your mail, or surfing the web. As a whole, the campaign is really well done. The message is consistently delivered across all channels, it’s well integrated into the social campaigns supporting it, and it’s fun. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t love this commercial with the little kids?

But there was one flaw in the execution. The campaign doesn’t seem to be perfectly integrated with gap.com. Sure there were huge banners and a special section to “shop the TV spots.” But there is a significant amount of merchandise featured in the commercials that is not available online. In fact, my client had her eye on one of the sweaters at the forefront of the commercials and assumed she wasn’t looking in the right place when she couldn’t find it online even days after the campaign launched. And until two days ago, banners showcasing the exact items she wanted were all over the site, but she just couldn’t find the clothing.

Maybe some of the merchandise was only sold in stores? This could be the case but I seriously doubt The Gap would spend so many ad dollars promoting products that were in-store only, as well as blanket the site with creative featuring in-store only merchandise.

Maybe some of the items were already sold out? This is the most plausible explanation. Especially now that the banners are gone, which leads me to believe they’re out of the inventory. But isn’t The Gap missing a huge opportunity here?

It isn’t likely that The Gap will pull commercials or swap out billboards until the end of the holiday season. Therefore people are still going to be exposed to these items and, more than likely, are still going to search for them. If I were responsible for online merchandising for The Gap, I’d leave these products up even if they were sold out but indicate that they’re no longer available. Why?

1. The “Shop the TV Spots” section looks inconsistent with the ad campaigns with the majority of the merchandise absent. Personally, seeing such a small selection of merchandise made the campaign less impactful to me.
2. The Gap is missing an opportunity to cross-sell a different item that may be similar and in stock when a consumer comes from the off-line campaign to the site looking for one of the items.
3. Consumers who really wanted that sweater will probably hop on it the next time they see something they like versus waiting around to make up their minds or, even worse, for the item to go on sale.
4. These items may be available in a store close to the consumer. So a link to the store finder would be a great way to drive foot traffic into a store from the product page.
5. Tracking interactions with products online can be a huge indicator of product popularity and help inform better buying decisions in future seasons. By removing the inventory in a collection, the opportunity for measurement is lost.

These are just a few reasons that immediately came to mind for why a little flaw in execution could result in the loss of many opportunities and less cheering at corporate over the holiday campaign.