It may be surprising to some to find out that Old Navy is owned by The Gap, Inc. It may be even more surprising to find out that not only does Gap own Old Navy, it owns Banana Republic and Intermix as well. Some may ask themselves why one corporation owns so many different clothing retail stores. The answer is very simple. Every retail store creates an identity for its customers. Everyone asks themselves before starting any day, “What am I going to wear today?” Our clothes are important to us, not just because they cover us and keep us warm, but because they allow us to express ourselves. Our wardrobes gives us identities. Through comparison with some of its sister brands and analysis of its ads and spatial design, it is clear to see that Old When I first heard of this, I thought to myself, “What is Intermix?” I had no idea what this store was. After looking into this store, it made complete sense why I had never heard of a store called Intermix. Actually, these retailers are not known as just any regular store. Intermix retail spaces are known as boutiques, a very important distinction. Regular retail stores tend to have a wide variety of products to choose from. Boutiques are small with limited inventory and a much narrower scope of target consumers. While Gap and Banana Republic have thousands of stores in the United States and abroad, Intermix has only 30 boutiques in the entirety of the Unites States and Canada. This demonstrates that Intermix is not for just anybody. The types of products carried by Intermix are very unique. These products are never mass produced maintaining a look of exclusivity top class status. We can also see this by Intermix’s absence on television and radio ads. People who shop at Intermix are the people who can travel wherever they wish, whenever they wish, and have the intention of buying exclusive pieces that will set them apart from everyone else, even high middle class For the purpose of this essay, we will examine the retail location of Old Navy at the Third Street Promenade at Santa Monica. Upon entrance of this store, there is a group of mannequins grouped together like a family. Immediately the store is telling mothers that this store is for them and their for families. Even the way the store is organized shows that it is designed for women. Everything is compartmentalized into little "rooms" that appeal to the mentality of mothers. Aisles are large enough to accommodate strollers and running children. Also, at the checkout stand, there are rows with toys and other things meant for children. This fortifies the image that mom are the ones who are the ones who shop at Old Navy. Mothers like knowing that they are shopping at a family store. Another spatial design that shows that working moms are the targeted consumer at Old Navy is the fact that the entire first floor is women’s clothing. The second floor is where the men’s and children’s clothing are found. The store as a whole is designed to resemble a house, a place where women are more inclined to feel comfortable and take
The three girls entering the store in bathing suits and “walking against the usual traffic” coming down the aisle symbolize Sammy’s individualism. Because of the girl’s different appearance from the usual shoppers in A & P, Sammy couldn’t help but stare. This type of dress was not part of the “A & P policy” especially since “the women generally put on a shirt or shorts or something before they get out of the car into the street”.
In “A & P”, John Updike conveys the reaction of bystanders to three young women when they enter a grocery store, dressed in swim wear during a day at the beach. The ladies begin touring the store in search of Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks for Queeie’s mother. Lengel, the store manager, takes notice of the girl’s attire as they navigate to the cashier to pay for their snack and disapprovingly confronts them. During Lengel’s conversation at the checkout, Queenie understandably becomes uncomfortable and defensive. She attempts to defend herself but the store manager relentlessly reiterates his opinion. The checkout interaction in “A & P’ causes me to flashback to my early teenage years when I experienced unwelcomed disapproval regarding my choice of attire.
Over the years, the American department store has developed and evolved as not only a commercial business but also a cultural institution. While it has weathered many storms and changes since its inception and throughout history, its most predominant enemy has been a change in the lifestyle of the American people (Whitaker, 2013). As the customer’s needs and wants have shifted, department stores have struggled to keep up with demands. It has been argued that the decline of the department store has been ongoing for the last 50 years (Whitaker, 2013). This dissertation aims to understand how the department store has historically played a role in consumer culture and spending, and additionally, how this has evolved and changed in today’s retail market. Although department stores may not be able to take all the credit for inventing modern shopping, they certainly made its conventions and conveniences commonplace. They set a new standard for the way the consumer should expect to be treated, the type of services that should be provided, and the convenience that should attend the process of acquiring the necessities and niceties of life all in one place. They made shopping into a leisure pastime. This environment meant shopping was a means of freedom to look around, pick up objects with no obligations to buy. As one historian remarked, department stores: “encouraged a perception of the building as a public place, where consumption itself was almost incidental to the delights of a sheltered promenade in a densely crowded, middle-class urban space” (Whitaker, 2006). Although this perception and view of the department store has changed over the years, this paper aims to follow the trail of how and why that happened.
In the case of Old Navy, the answer lies in the combined natures of Capitalism and the infantilist regression it engenders.
People are often deceived by some famous brands, which they will buy as useless commodities to feel they are distinctive. People require brands to experience the feeling of being special. People spend their money to have something from famous brands, like a bag from Coach or Louis Vuitton which they think they need, yet all that is just people’s wants. Steve McKevitt claims that people give more thought on features or brands when they need to buy a product, “It might even be the case that you do need a phone to carry out your work and a car to get around in, but what brand it is and, to a large extent, what features it has are really just want” (McKevitt, 145), which that means people care about brands more than their needs. Having shoes from Louis Vuitton or shoes that cost $30 it is designed for the same use.
In the 1997 article Listening to Khakis, published in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell effectively paints a vivid picture of the thought and science that goes into advertising campaigns. Gladwell begins his paper by focusing on the Dockers’ advertising campaign for their line of adult male khaki pants, which he labels as extremely successful. This campaign was the first line of successful fashion advertisements aimed directly toward adult males (Gladwell, 1997). This campaign was cunningly simple and showed only males wearing the pants being advertised with the background noise filled with men having a casual conversation (Gladwell, 1997). This tactic was used because studies showed that Dockers’ target market felt an absence in adult male friendships. (Gladwell, 1997). The simplicity of the advertisements was accentuated as to not to deter possible customers by creating a fashion based ad because, based on Gladwell’s multiple interviews of advertising experts, males shy away from being viewed as fashion forward or “trying to hard” (Gladwell, 1997).
“A&P” is a popular coming of age short story written by John Updike. The story follows the narrator/protagonist Sammy; who works at a local A&P. While working three girls in bathing suits enter the store; Sammy doesn’t know it yet, but this interlude in his life will have a great impact on his life and even him as a person. From the extensively long monologue Sammy has within his head we get a very vivid or rather picturesque description of the three young women. Even as these women go furtively in and out of different aisles Sammy’s watchful eye rarely misses them which could be called by some a little obsessive. He begins to form educated guesses on how their lives must be like and what they must be like when in their natural habitat. Updike
Why are Gap ads so powerful? The concept of all of their recent television commercials is very simple, yet highly effective. An attractive young person, or perhaps a small group of attractive young people, is on a stark, white set. The actor/ model/ celebrity then sings and or dances around. The commercial ends with a catchy phrase about the Gap: Gap Rocks or Gap Swings, or something similar. It’s a simple concept, but somehow it works. What branding is about for this company is identifying through the elaborate cool-hunting market-research process what it is that the public cares about and are passionate about as a culture, and harnessing that to sell something very different. So it is, in a sense, a betrayal. The Gap's not selling music, they're selling clothing. By examining the institutions, sign systems, subject positions, and mediation used in the advertisements, perhaps an explanation to their success, and why the public allows itself to be duped, can be determined.
The company had to be the second largest retailer shop in the US; it has many advantages that come along. The customers well acknowledge the company and its brand have been well established.
It is important to realize that Sammy’s 19-year old depiction of his surroundings might be skewed, but the story still maintains Updike’s basic use of this setting. Updike choses the dull setting of an A&P grocery store as a symbol, a microcosmic example of the societies tendency to conform. Also, the readers can easily relate to a grocery store. This A&P resides in a town where “the women generally put on shirt or shorts or something before they get out of their car into the street,” Sammy explains. Seeing a girl walking around wearing only a bikini in such a public place looks outrageous. “If you stand at our front doors you can see two banks and the Congregational church and the newspaper store…” The town is a conventional one. Updike turns this familiar, mundane piece of American life, and makes it extraordinary.
The principles of marketing (The Times 100, n.d) are a range of processes concerned with finding out what consumers want, and providing it for them. This involves the ‘4ps’ of marketing; price, place, product and promotion. The product decision in any company involves dealing with goods that should be offered to a group of customers (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Burberry maintains a product line with great width and scope in which their products fall into two main categories; fashion or continuity. Their fashion products are designed to be responsive to fashion trends and are introduced on a collection to collection basis (Burberry, n.d). Continuity products however have life cycles that are expected to last for a certain time period. Burberry also has 3 primary collections; womenswear, menswear and accessories, with the variety of products they can utilize their product mix greatly. Burberry also has...
When Gap was founded in 1969, Gap was unique and new. Gap's target customers were younger generations. Gap's hottest seller at the time was its "basic" look, which consisted of signature blue jeans and white cotton t-shirts. Gap founders realized that jeans were becoming popular among the younger generation of customers. Nevertheless, the company recognized that despite Gaps popularity among the youth, there were not enough assortments of jeans in the clothing outlets. Capitalizing on this deficit was merely the next step in expanding. Gap's founders were sure that jeans could be sold through a chain of small stores devoted solely to that product. As Gaps business idea became successful, Gap expanded their line of offering and now Gap offers a range of clothing for men, women, and children. As Gap's business began to boom, Gap also began to expand. Gap Inc. added two new entities to the company, Banana Republic and Old Navy. All three chains have their own target markets. Banana Republic is known for their casual luxury, with high-quality apparel. Banana Republic tailors their store to appeal to the unique market of pleasing the most fashion conscious consumers.
There are fashionable furniture and decorations in the room, all of them in gender-neutral colors. The family is well-dressed in soft blues and white. Every face in the ad is adorned with a tremendous smile. The caption in the upper-left corner describes “dad” as cool and a best friend, bike fixer, swim coach, tent builder, and hug giver rolled into one. Or two. The family includes a young daughter and son who appear Hispanic, and their two Caucasian fathers, approximately in their thirties. This stylish clothing advertisement not only sells JCPenney’s clothes, but also challenges the conventional roles and ideas that have been imposed on the American
traded company. This makes the employees at Publix want to make their store successful as they
As part of my experiment with broaching normative gender images, I decided to visit the perfume counter at my local Sears and inquire about purchasing a bottle for myself instead of a woman. Although a minor interaction, I believed browsing for perfume was something generally associated with females alone. Sears, as a store, is something I have always associated with women myself. This belief is a direct result of a childhood where I was dragged around by my mother when she went shopping at the mall.