The casualwear chain 'Gap' decided to change its decades old logo with a new chic-style logo. The new logo irritated fans, spurring them to complain about it online. "Gap" became a trending topic on Twitter, as design- and branding-savvy Twitterers (as well as those who just like to voice an opinion on everything) proclaimed their distaste for the new logo. In a knee jerk reaction they decided to crowd source the logo through social networking websites. This turned the irritated fans into an online mob, with custom avatars mocking the logo popping up and even a fake Gap Logo Twitter feed, @gaplogo, with a few thousand followers. A set of individuals referring to themselves as "The Randian Preservation Society" went so far as to launch a site called Crap Logo Yourself, in which you could put any text into the style of the new Gap logo, playfully asking, "Why hire an expensive firm to rebrand?"
Gap North America president Marka Hansen said in a statement, "There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we'll handle it in a different way," Hansen said, adding that the project was not the right one to offer up to "crowd sourcing."
A week later the gap logo was changed back to the original one.
Guess the retailers didn't estimate the 'gap' between their logo and their customers correctly.
1 comment:
This is very interesting topic to discuss how powerful companies' logs are. I think it is very unique but understandable case which company changed and back to original logo from the new design because of the SNS. There are more than 2,000 comments on the "Logo War" on Twitter only in Japan. Now, company should listen carefully to customers because of the appearance of the Internet. Otherwise, they will spend more money wasteful or simply loose their customers.
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