Channing said The Gap had set no numerical benchmarks to determine success in the campaign, but rather would look at "how much consumers interact with the brand" to gauge ROI.
No numerical benchmarks? Really?
Building buzz is an important skill set in social media but the return on investment comes from leveraging that buzz to increase your company revenues not in simply being more popular. The Gap has no numerical benchmarks for this endeavor? How will they know whether or not the campaign worked or not? I highly doubt that executives at The Gap will be happy if the buzz and "consumer interaction" results in selling just five more pairs of jeans per store.
In the wedding industry, the prevalent attitude toward social media still tends to be "well this Internet thing is a fad, but what the heck, let's try it out. We don't need to actually measure anything with numbers and math, because you know, it's social and just a fun thing."
Your company's social media strategy needs to be treated with the same due diligence and planning that you would treat any other aspect of your business. What do you want to get out being involved in social media? More business? How much more? It's no secret that social media requires quite a bit of time. If you spend four hours per week on your blog, Facebook or Twitter, what do you hope that will result in? What are your metrics? Do you want more Twitter followers? Why? What do those numbers represent in your plan?
When it comes to your online involvement, know what you want and set a plan with relevant metrics to help you get there. As Zig Ziglar famously says, "If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time."
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For millennials, the generation that accounts for more than 70% of today's weddings and the first to grow up with the Internet, technology has done more than give unprecedented access to information; it has physically changed their brains on a microcellular level. What worked in bridal marketing just ten years ago is no longer effective because the way today's engaged couples think is actually different than couples of generations past. In 
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3 comments:
Liene,
Great Post!
This is a bold move on the part of The Gap. No, measurement for ROI? Perhaps they have something up their sleeve that they are not disclosing...ummm.
I'll definitely be watching their success. I'm sure that they will be too. They real question to The Gap is, "How will you know if you've succeeded?".
...no measurement for ROI...ummm
Hi Liene,
I've been tracking this campaign since friends of mine in the blogosphere started getting interviewed to be GAP ambassadors. I noticed the online publicity for GAP increased significantly, but I wondered how the store would track ROI, especially since a large component of the campaign involved giving away free pairs of Jeans to a large number of people.
The fact that they specifically stated there weren't any benchmarks scares me. This could be a case study for a great campaign, but how will we know if we can't measure it?
Thank you for sharing your insight on how important numbers are in PR/marketing/advertising.
Best,
Meg
Awesome, Liene. After reading this post, I feel like I've just taken triple my Vitamin C for the day. Feeling energized and focused. Thank you!
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