Social Media and Gap Incorporated - Essay Example

HERE INFO HERE YOUR HERE HERE Social Media and Gap Incorporated Gap Incorporated maintains many different fashion brands which each have their own unique branding strategy. For instance, Old Navy tends to appeal to the younger consumer using a more trendy and retro-styled logo for the business. At the same time, Banana Republic focuses its marketing attention toward the consumer, who is more chic and prestigious-looking with more ample financial resources. Though the delivery of the company’s different brand strategies is consistent, there are still opportunities to take advantage of a growing trend in the use of social media to improve Gap Incorporated’s profit margins for their different fashion brands. Social media represents any effort on behalf of the marketing company in the online environment which promotes socialization or offers insight into consumer opinion through the use of user-generated content (Smith, 559). Some companies are even taking advantage of social networking site models like Twitter’s TweetBeep alert system which emails a professional whenever their company is mentioned in the social network (Hogan and Miller, 25). In order to make the site more interactive, Gap Incorporated can setup a consumer blog which rates certain fashions or the models that are being depicted in the online advertisements. A Rate This! promotion attached to visible consumer links would build interest in leaving comments. This system would need to be maintained by an information support systems team to update the information timely. This blog could give unique insights into consumer values, beliefs, and their current thinking toward the fashion industry as a whole. If the new interactive features are interesting and exciting enough, it will create a viral marketing outcome which should build higher consumer visits to the Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, et al. brands. Gap Incorporated should also consider the results of a recent study conducted by Cone Business which identified that consumers crave social interaction (Black, 41). This is due to the high rise of social networking and the amount of time consumers interact in the online social environment increasing. This study also identified that when important stakeholders are online (in this case the consumer) they are looking to speak with organizations and different brands in the digital environment (Black). Gap Incorporated should consider that interactive website promotions, such as a compete to win promotion battling different online users in a trivia contest for discounts, would also provide consumers with their psychological need to socialize and build more interest in visiting Gap Incorporated brand websites. Offering discounts in consumer trivia discounts provides the incentives to browse through pages of merchandise or learn more about the company and its diversity. Gap might also consider one drawback of making social media a part of their brand websites: Marketers are becoming more sophisticated in the use of the Internet as a marketing tool and are using social media in large industries such as pharmaceuticals (Comer, 2009). Says Craig Audet, vice president of US Regulatory Affairs, “In order to deliver personalized content that’s relevant and engaging to a consumer, marketers need to acquire personal information” (Comer, 2). This is why social media is being used so widely because it provides businesses with certain registration identification when consumers log-in and allows these businesses to link posted opinions with a profile of where the consumer visits when browsing merchandise. The drawback in this situation is that there is a great deal of competition, in many different industries including retail, which means that the promotion will need to be innovative in order to compete successfully with trend-conscious consumers. Despite this drawback, there is another positive outcome of Gap Incorporated changing to an interactive social media format. When consumers post comments on public blog sites, it can increase the amount of search hits that each company receives (Daniel, 1). For example, if the Old Navy brand maintained a social networking feature which allowed users to post comments about jeans style, a user running a search on style might find the interesting consumer statement as a search result, thus being directed to Old Navy. Optimizing the frequency of consumers visiting the sites through search engine keyword matching is another reason why Gap Incorporated should set up an online forum for discussion of consumer opinions. If even a small group of consumers who are directed to the site in this fashion become purchasers, the only real effort is updating and monitoring the social network to keep it relevant and interesting. Using daily brain teasers online is another method of using social media for Gap Incorporated. In an effort to promote Smart-Kit.com, a puzzle manufacturer, brain teaser fans were able to meet online and discuss puzzle games, with links to the company website in this social forum. The Gap family of brands could benefit from similar puzzle games, such as Reveal the Fashion promotion with the image of a fractured model requiring reassembly through the user’s mouse pad. Depending on the brand image each Gap family brand maintains, the images can be updated routinely to represent certain famous faces or unappealing characters to promote excitement and the posting of an opinion. Leveraging this type of activity would involve ensuring that certain image copyrights are upheld to ensure no liability for the Gap Inc. brands. There would also be a financial expenditure in relation to payroll obligations for information support systems technicians to provide the virtual updates and page presentation of the new animations or puzzle games. The “social revolution” becoming a global phenomenon and consumers has turned toward more video sharing than ever before (Smith, 559). With this in mind, in order to make Gap Incorporated brands more interactive, unique animated videos or online commercial advertisements should be spotlighted to provide entertainment to the different buying segments. Leveraging this activity would involve allocating a budget for the shooting of live actor commercials or payments to an animations/graphics specialist to design the short video cartoons. By making these videos free to share, it will appeal to the video sharing consumer and also bring more brand awareness in the process, especially if the animation or commercial is innovative and interesting. Having Rate this Video promotions which fit in line with the brand’s overall positioning strategy could generate a great deal of buzz about the businesses. The key is to understand what values and lifestyles that each brand’s customers prefer in order to create videos which are amusing or sophisticated enough to change consumer buying behavior in favor of Gap Incorporated. The fact that consumer use of online social media continues to rise each year (Smith) supports why social media is not just a passing consumer fad with no real long-term value. Social networking connects people of different demographics and geographic location that it has given some societies new communications flexibility. It is likely that the life cycle of social networking is at least ten years. Gap Incorporated should consider the expected life cycle of social networking sites, such as Twitter or company-related blog sites, and then use these as business benchmarks to come up with something that can generate interest before the idea becomes outdated. The key to success with interactive social media seems to be in building interest and excitement in the desired consumer segments. The use of social media is also beneficial because it connects people with the same ideas and shopping preferences and other like-minded value systems (Daniel, 2). Many businesses spend a great deal of money on trying to figure out the best method to segment consumer groups. Focus groups, survey research and even interviews are conducted with various consumers in an attempt to identify any particular trend in behavior. The interactive social networking methods for Gap Incorporated, by design, would make some of these costs disappear as the customers would be drawn to the websites because they are of the same or similar market segments. Attracting customers and gaining their loyalty is an aspect of branding and marketing, therefore social blogs and other interactive media content can be viewed as a cost-savings benefit in regards to understanding how best to segment potential customer groups. Higher brand exposure is another positive benefit of using social media for Gap Incorporated. Many of the fashion brands could develop an interactive chat forum titled Gap Fashion Showroom in which virtual sales models (of different shapes and sizes) try on the different fashion brands to assist in their online shopping habits. Interactive voice comments such as I’ll get that right away or I’m moving as fast as I can! could bring higher interest and also create a viral buzz about the different brands. This would be a more mass market focused campaign. With some additional public relations through promotional releases was timed properly, such a site could be a long-time hit (perhaps as much as two years). Getting more customers interested and aware of your brands, and improving your reputation for engaging online content, would be outcomes of using social media to improve brand image. This activity could be leveraged through higher budgets allocated to development of the information systems necessary to accomplish animations of this scope. This would also involve quantitative research by measuring how many customers who view these animations actually become converted customers. Being able to track the effectiveness of this higher-cost online social media format would be an important concern for Gap Incorporated and there would need to be justification for continuing the promotion through higher online sales numbers. This effort would also likely involve the dedication of the sales and marketing divisions at these different Gap brands to come up with innovative concepts for future launch on the new interactive websites. It is important to also recognize another potential risk of using social media at Gap Incorporated brands. Managing the user-generated content in the online environment is very difficult without a filtration program or some method to ensure that negative comments (or disruptive/vulgar) are not left on the site. This would require, again, the support of the information systems specialists who can review blog entries, determine whether they could cause brand image problems, and then make the final approval to post these comments. It is likely that consumers will want to see their posting appear quickly, therefore this would need to be a real-time function of IT support teams. The amount of investment necessary, in this case, to launch a total quality control system might actually outweigh the gains achieved through sales in these promotions. Therefore, even though consumer use of corporate-sponsored social media is rising, the life cycle of each individual Gap Incorporated brand promotions may not recapture the costs of developing a content quality system. Using more social media for Gap Brands also provides opportunities for new service development. New product development is considered to be one of the most important elements of business success (Boone and Kurtz, 401). Another option for the brands is to create the opportunity for social networking customers to generate ideas about upcoming promotional animations or commercials. Launching a Runway Your Way interactive feature could allow users to vote on certain ideas or rate customer ideas. After a period of time and ratings are calculated, the winner’s idea will be developed into an upcoming video. This would give customers a chance to create community in the online forum and also become excited about being a creative force at Gap Incorporated and its family of fashion brands. Leveraging this activity would involve the same level of effort as the other interactive social media options for Gap Inc. and the same financial expenditures. However, this forum is the most interactive option as it would appeal to the consumer’s artistic and innovative lifestyle aspects. There are clearly many ways in which Gap Incorporated can setup its own interactive, consumer-focused feature which promotes the social exchange of knowledge or creativity. Whether the company decides to launch a fully interactive program which allows consumers to browse virtual merchandise on animated models or the simple addition of a fashion-oriented blog, there are many benefits to using this new marketing feature to build higher sales successes. It would appear that the many benefits tend to outweigh the few negative outcomes which could occur as a result of using social media in online brand websites. Leveraging these activities would involve understanding all of the costs associated with maintaining these new interactive features and deciding which specific department of expertise must be involved in setting up these social media forums. It is a trend with a long life cycle and should be able to provide Gap Incorporated with continued sales success and sales improvements in the online environment. Companies which are willing to invest the time and effort necessary to develop worthwhile social media campaigns would be bringing the business more brand exposure, converting more browsers into actual purchasers, and giving Gap Incorporated brands yet another method to compete successfully in a competitive retail environment. All of the Gap Incorporated brand websites could benefit from using social media, especially if the content included videos and new commercials added weekly or as often as budget restrictions allow. It provides unique insight into what drives consumer behavior, within desired market segments, and can bring positive public relations to the business in the process. Bibliography Black, Alonzo. “Quick Study: Consumers Want to Socialize with Companies; Revenue Potential Falls Short, Biz Travel Spending a Mixed Bag”. PR News. Vol. 64, Iss. 39, 2008. www.proquest.com. (accessed 6 Aug 2009). Boone, L. and D. Kurtz. Contemporary Marketing. 12th ed. Thomson South Western, 2007 Comer, Ben. “Antisocial Media”. Medical Marketing and Media. New York, 2009. Daniel, D. “Five Benefits of Social Media”. http://ezinearticles.com/?Five-Benefits-of-Social-Media&id=2661335 (accessed 7 Aug 2009). Hogan, Mike and Nancy Miller. “Making the most of Twitter”. Barron’s. New York. Vol. 89, Iss. 31, 2009. Smith, Tom. “The social media revolution”. International Journal of Market Research. Vol.51, Iss. 4, 2009. . Read More