Brilliant Brand or Stupid Brand: You decide, or I will for you

Rebecca
October 26, 2006

If it's not in your town yet, then it shall be soon: the Gap (PRODUCT) RED TM Limited Edition brand, which will provide limited funds to The Global Fund's HIV/AIDS programs in Africa. Their "Word T" line of red t-shirts currently obscures the boobies of Christy Turlington, Mary J. Blige and Penelope Cruz in store windows and billboards nationwide. I think that the shirts might actually all say INSPI(RED)--haven't actually been in a store to look--but the celebrity shots are paired with other words that have similarly undergone parenthesizing and ostensibly describe the particular celebrity, including EMPOWE(RED), ASSU(RED), ADMI(RED), DISCOVE(RED), UNCENSO(RED) and POWE(RED). Hey! That last one looks oddly like the first one! hmm...

Noble. Noble indeed. But not as noble as Newman's Own. And why limited edition? Why not all of the time? (Okay, they did commit to five years, and they say that they're expanding their use of African vendors to promote economic growth, blahbity-blah.) The effectiveness of the (PRODUCT) RED model of social entrepreneurship aside, on a simple nuts and bolts level, is this a Brilliant Brand, or a Stupid Brand?

I vote for Stupid.

For one, I am totally confused by Penelope Cruz being labeled as DESI(RED). Not because I think Penelope Cruz isn't desired, but because I do a little double-take and think they're saying she's Desi. Red. The other words where the (red) is happening have the same effect on me, except in a more nonsensical way. That people are inspi, and discove, and uncenso, and assu. It's like someone read a postmodernist paper back in the day and effed it all up. It's not the verb ending, people! Not only is it not the verb ending, it's not the verb ending with a random letter leftover from the root! They might as well have said (RED)ICULOUS.

With the DESI(RED), it's like they just didn't think it through. It's like they were pulling words that ended in "red" out of their butts back at ye olde office, and someone said, "That's awesome! Penelope Cruz is totally desired! Let's run with it!!!" and didn't realize that the part of the word that they didn't highlight actually draws out a different sort of meaning.

A better red t-shirt for the cause at hand would simply say REDRESS.

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Culture
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Comments

Comments

harvey wrote on Sun, 01/21/2007 - 8:39pm
A few years ago, our local utility, ComEd, was trying to dig out from the publicty of a slew of bad incidents.So they began a campaign called Recommitted, in which they would highlight the letters com ed in the word recommitted.What no one at the company seems to have noticed is that if you see the glass half-empty instead, they had highlighted the letters "remit", meaning, "send us your money."
JonathanSalemBaskin wrote on Fri, 01/26/2007 - 8:57am
I think it's all tres sexy and smart and totally in line with what the Gap's presumed target consumers care about...and it's a total failure. It's a brilliant poster child for debunking the myth that you can build or promote a brand by associating it with external cool things (causes, people, whatever), instead of DOING real things that warrant consumer patronage (better clothes, stores, prices, whatever). The Gap has fired its president, and might be up for sale. There's nothing like delivering another big branding success and a concurrent business failure, eh? Something's wrong in that equation...
claire wrote on Fri, 10/27/2006 - 9:31am
i think you're thinking too much (and they were thinking too little.) what i object to more is the implication that penelope cruz is desired and mary j. is empowered. why the fuck does a black woman have to be empowered? and who the fuck thinks mary j. isn't desired?the one-word self-advertisement plays to stereotypes in this campaign, and yes, that includes racial stereotypes, too. sheesh. you'd think ad agencies would be making efforts these days to root out such thinking, but i guess simple-minded will always be in.
rebecca wrote on Fri, 10/27/2006 - 12:58pm
well, my thinking about it was precipitated by actually being confused. and i think that you've been thinking about it too much too, you thinker you.
seng wrote on Fri, 10/27/2006 - 3:39pm
I looked at it and though, "damn, Don Cheedle's got some guns!"I agree that the P.Cruz one is odd, though, but given it's the only one that I've seen where the word split makes two words, I'm assuming it's a basic oversight (passive ignorance) on the part of the marketers. True, Parminder Nagra would have been a more clever choice, but rarely is advertising so clever (and would she play as well in such a submissive pose as the one struck by Cruz?).As to who is desired or empowered, it's a moot point since there are so many other ads in the series. I mean, isn't Christy Turlington desired, Chris Rock inspired or Steven Spielberg admired also?
powerpolitics wrote on Fri, 10/27/2006 - 11:16pm
I agree 100% with every word in this post, especially your last idea that they should have called the whole thing PROJECT (RED)RESS and had a bunch of ads with red dresses. The whole advertisinig campaign is just a ploy to brand them as a socially conscious company when in reality they employ child labor in sweatshops.
MudPhud Girl wrote on Sat, 10/28/2006 - 10:58am
rebecca,but but but! you know that if they stuck a real desi chick in there, people like me would be all "omfg. there they go again...exoticizing our peoples. how orientalist of them..." yadda yadda yaddai was confused too. but then, i was happy that i don't wear GAP clothes so i didn't have to ever worry about it again :)most capriciously,mudphud girl
chir-jen wrote on Mon, 10/30/2006 - 9:47am
what is a desi and what does this have to do with asians?
EmPoWe(ReD) wrote on Fri, 02/01/2008 - 6:54pm
I think all of you guys are really freakin retarded and that that campaign is really cool...and it's also raised like over 4 million dollars for all of the people with AIDS. I have a question for you:::WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR THEM?So before you go making fun of some idea made by someone to save part of the world...THINK!! idiot(red)...
EmPoWe(ReD) wrote on Thu, 02/07/2008 - 5:43am
SEE! I silenced everyone...Made you morons think about what you were saying didn't I??
EmPoWe(ReD) wrote on Thu, 02/07/2008 - 5:44am
SEE! I silenced everyone...Made you morons think about what you were saying didn't I??And claire- it's not a racial stereotype...you're looking WAY to much into this and making something out of basically nothing.