Gap Takes to NYC Streets for Holiday Campaign
Yahoo powers a holiday promotion for the retailer with street teams around Manhattan and ads across the Yahoo network.
A new holiday campaign from the Gap combines location-specific camera crews with ads across the Yahoo network to get consumers to send video greeting cards to friends and family.
Yahoo Director of Social Media Strategy Conn Fishburn said the campaign’s goal is to redefine the classic holiday greeting by bringing it online.
“One of the things we try to do with partners and clients is to tie it into something that’s culturally relevant and fits in with natural behavior,” said Fishburn. “Sending holiday cards has long been a part of the holiday season. Giving sound and motion is something fun, a happy convergence of user intent and technical capabilities.”
Yahoo and the Gap sent a mobile recording studio in a truck to various New York locations where pedestrians were invited to record greetings. The videos were then posted on a holiday-themed site at gaptidings.yahoo.com, where people can access and forward their clips to friends and family or syndicate widgets to their social network profiles and blogs.
“New York is a great market for us, and we felt this was a big way to make an impact for the market over the holidays,” said Gap spokesperson Kimberly Terry. “Plus, in New York, not only do you get New Yorkers, but you also have tourists.”
Once on the Gaptidings site, users can also watch celebrity greetings filmed by Angie Harmon Sehorn and Jason Sehorn, the Broadway cast of “Spring Awakening,” Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, James Mardsen, and Zoe Saldana and her sisters.
Those submitting video from home have the advantage of customizing the screen size and soundtrack with remixed holiday classics sung by Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, Dean Martin, and Bing Crosby. “Everyone associates the holidays with music, and the Gap has a history of being involved with music,” said Terry.
To drive traffic to Gaptidings, the clothing retailer bought a combination of search and display ads across the Yahoo network. The search buy, according to Fishburn, included both branded and general terms related to holiday greetings.
Visitors to Gaptidings site can vote on videos, and the top three will win a 2007 limited edition Vespa LX 50, painted in Gap’s seasonal crazy stripe pattern.
