Gap’s CEO: We’re done bombarding you with promotions

This week, the world’s top leaders in advertising and marketing have been on the coast of France at the Cannes Lions festival to talk about all things brand strategy.

There, the CEO of an iconic American company took to the mic to discuss why his company is doing less promotions as it tries to revitalize its image and reputation to consumers.

Richard Dickson, the chief executive officer of Gap Inc. — which owns its namesake company, plus retailers Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Athleta — was open about the company’s past blunders in a conversation with the Wall Street Journal.

“This is a brand that, through its narrative, changed culture and/or shaped culture,” he said. “Somewhere along the way, we lost the art of that brand-merchant storytelling and became a retailer that sold stuff. So we had to go in and edit.”

Here’s what Dickson said about what the retailer and its subsidiary brands got wrong in the past — and how he’s “reinvigorating” them.

Dickson joined as CEO in 2023, after more than 20 years at another iconic brand, toymaker Mattel. There, as BI previously reported, he was credited with reviving the Barbie franchise.

He came on as Gap had been facing years of underperformance and brand identity issues as other fast fashion retailers gained steam. But the appeal he saw when joining as CEO nearly two years ago, he said, was that “everybody wants Gap to win.”

“There’s not haters out there of Gap. There’s, to some extent, what happened? Where did it go? I used to, if you will, shop at Gap,” he said. “These are fertile ground ingredients for any marketing/business narrative.”

Gap has been around for more than 50 years, and had its heyday in late 90s with iconic commercials like the Khaki Swing video, which he cited in the conversation with the Journal.

“The brand started and sort of personified itself by celebrating big product ideas into major campaigns that were about what we’ll call fashion-tainment,” he said.

Now, the company is getting back to that. Recent examples include pop singer Troye Sivan’s baggy jeans campaign with Gap, plus Banana Republic’s recent partnership with actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, who gained popularity in the hit TV show “The White Lotus.”

But even though the brand is attempting to transform, it won’t be spending more on marketing, said Dickson — the focus will be more on what they spend on and how those strategies come across to consumers.

“Today, you don’t need to spend more, you need to be more effective in the stories that you’re trying to tell.”

Since he joined in 2023, he’s also been trying to dial back Gap’s infamous and constant “percentage off” promos.

“If you had gone into a Gap store a year ago, or Old Navy, you were to some extent bombarded,” he said. “It was almost unbelievable to the extent that even internally, we would pull up our sites and I would say, what are we selling?”

“When you go into stores and you see a sign on every single fixture, that’s not an experience that’s gonna be appealing. So our signing system has gotten a lot more refined. Our sites have become a lot more precise.”

Although their promotional cadence is not changing, the narrative and how they approach them is.

“We love promotions. We love exciting the consumer with great price and great value and great style,” he said. “But our communication and how we promote is a much more refined and directed narrative.”

He’s said they’ve already started to see greater consumer resilience and loyalty as a result.

“Each brand is in a different stage of what we’ll call revitalization,” he said about Gap Inc.’s portfolio. “But the formula is the same: cultural relevance, great product, great execution, and great experience.”

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