The situation

In October 2010, Gap had been struggling with declining sales and brand relevance. The brand's iconic logo (blue box with serif "GAP" in capitals) had been in use since 1986 and was one of the most recognized retail logos in the US. The company's marketing team decided a logo refresh would signal a new era for the brand.

What Gap did

On October 4, 2010, Gap unveiled a new logo on its website: "Gap" in lowercase Helvetica with a small blue square in the top-right corner. There was no announcement, no campaign, no explanation. Customers and designers reacted within hours — Twitter exploded with criticism, designers ridiculed the new logo as "amateur hour," and a fake Twitter account ("Gap Logo") gained tens of thousands of followers in days. Gap's response was initially defensive (the team described it as "modern" and "current"), then pivoted to attempting "crowd-source" feedback. The crowd-source attempt was rejected by designers. Within six days, Gap announced the reversal — back to the original logo.

The mechanics — step by step

  1. New logo launched without announcement or context
  2. Iconic equity discarded for generic typography
  3. Customer and designer backlash within hours
  4. Defensive initial response made things worse
  5. Failed crowd-source attempt
  6. Reversed within 6 days

Outcome and numbers

Gap reverted to the original logo on October 12, 2010. The episode generated significant negative press and was estimated to cost the firm $100k+ in design fees plus immeasurable brand-equity damage. The firm's CMO resigned in 2011 (though not directly attributed to this incident). The case has become one of the most-cited rebranding failures in modern marketing.

Why this case is on every syllabus

Gap's logo failure is taught as a rebranding case, a brand-equity case (don't discard equity casually), and a crisis-communication case (the response made it worse). It is one of the fastest brand-strategy failures in marketing history.

Use this in an essay

How to cite Gap in a paper

Cite Gap when discussing rebranding, brand equity, brand identity, or crisis communication. Use the 6-day reversal as specific evidence of magnitude.

Three takeaways students miss

  • Iconic brand equity is not discardable
  • Rebranding requires customer communication
  • Defensive response amplifies criticism
  • Crowd-sourcing design after-the-fact rarely succeeds
  • Speed of social media compresses rebranding failures from years to days
Editor's note Want a deeper walkthrough? Our editors recommend pairing this with Rebranding for a worked example you can adapt to your assignment.

Frameworks used in this case

Concept · Product & Brand Rebranding Concept · Product & Brand Brand Elements Concept · Promotion & IMC Crisis Communication Concept · Product & Brand Customer-Based Brand Equity (Keller CBBE) Concept · Product & Brand Brand Recall vs Brand Recognition