Image Courtesy of Gap Inc.
Everyone who owns a smartphone and spends at least a few hours per week browsing various retail sites, whether out of curiosity or necessity, is familiar with the ever-present litany of SMS messages, app notifications, and email blasts signaling daily deals from dozens of different brands.
The same could be said for those who venture to brick-and-mortar stores, whether looking for a nice linen outfit for a breezy summer ensemble or something to toss on the grill (or the grill itself) for a summer barbecue with friends and family.
When endless deal alerts present themselves on a regular basis, perhaps some of that novelty fades into fatigue. That's the conundrum most recently posed by Richard Dickson, CEO of clothing retailer Gap Inc., in comments made during this year's Cannes Lions festival held in France.
Gap CEO: Consumers Are 'Bombarded' by Promos
In remarks detailed by Business Insider, Dickson shared that Gap — once a company famous for its branding and celebrity partnerships — had somehow lost its way to become one among many: a company that relied on blasting shoppers with promotions rather than letting its cache speak for itself.
"This is a brand that, through its narrative, changed culture and/or shaped culture," Dickson said. "Somewhere along the way, we lost the art of that brand-merchant storytelling and became a retailer that sold stuff. So we had to go in and edit."
Following his involvement in revitalizing the Barbie brand for Mattel, Dickson signed on as CEO for Gap in 2023. As the CEO sees it, despite Gap still having a relatively healthy public image, it had gone astray from the core principles that had made it a household name — and destination — years ago.
"The brand started and sort of personified itself by celebrating big product ideas into major campaigns that were about what we'll call fashion-tainment," Dickson suggested, adding that he was currently engaged in an effort to curtail the company's now-infamous and unrelenting "percentage off" offers.
"If you had gone into a Gap store a year ago, or Old Navy, you were to some extent bombarded," he said. "It was almost unbelievable to the extent that even internally, we would pull up our sites and I would say, what are we selling?" the Gap CEO said.
"When you go into stores and you see a sign on every single fixture, that's not an experience that's gonna be appealing. So our signing system has gotten a lot more refined. Our sites have become a lot more precise," he added.
Dickson wound down discussion of the company's new thrust by saying that promotions and deals were certainly part of the broader game plan, but that a "much more refined and directed narrative" was necessary to achieve success in today's retail environment.
Americans Feel Overwhelmed by Notifications, Whether Retail Promos or Breaking News
Dickson's comments reiterated findings put forth by a November 2024 PYMNTS report examining the most recent Black Friday sales event — and broader consumer sentiment surrounding the existing retail landscape at that time.
Among the findings: More than two-fifths (40.5%) said that there are too many sales events now, making these promotions feel less special; an even greater cohort (43.3%) stated that the prevalence of sales events meant that less attention was being paid to them than previously; and one-third of those surveyed agreed with the use of the same term — "bombarded" — to describe their feelings in relation to contemporary sales promos.
One touchpoint in particular, the smartphone, may be seeing consumers of both retail products and news briefs feeling equally tired of the incessant message notifications and associated correspondence. On a tangential note, The Guardian outlined a recent survey conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which found that 79% of global respondents currently did not receive any news alerts during the average week — however, nearly half of that population (43%) had personally taken the time to block or disable these notifications.
With news alerts sometimes reaching upwards of 40 or 50 messages a day, and retailer promotions following suit with daily SMS, app, and email blasts, it is a distinct possibility that U.S. shoppers are simply tuning out the noise — or blocking those retail touchpoints altogether, deeming them more of a hindrance than help.