Collaborative // YCN: GAP Student campaign

For the collaborative brief, I am working with Johnathan Dawes and Alex Finney.
I approached them about collaborating as I feel that they are calm and level-headed and would be good to work with. I've worked with people before who have strong personalities and take complete charge,  or I clash with. I have worked with Alex Finney before and felt his contributions were of a high standard, and I know both are able to listen and be reasonable.
Saying this,  I would say that we all have slightly different styles, so can each bring a different touch to the project.
I have a wide array of interests, but something I almost always include in my work is illustration, or hand-rendered type/imagery. Hopefully this will be relevant in this project, but it may not be.

We chose the YCN Gap brief, as none of us have worked on a fashion-based project before, and it is aimed at students - we are students so we know our audience well.

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Create a student brand campaign that gives students a reason to visit Gap.

Who We Are

Here’s something you might find interesting: Gap has about 10 miles of storefront windows around the world. This makes us a huge global brand with loads of blank space that we use to speak to our customers every day. American Optimism is our attitude. Casual style is our aesthetic. Clean and confident, comfortable and accessible, classic and modern. It’s the quintessential expression of Gap brought to life through iconic clothing. Our roots epitomise American culture and denim-loving music muses. Gap embraces a youthful, infectious spirit and the freedom to express individual style.

Recently we’ve teamed up with world-renowned advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy to create our ‘Dress Normal’ campaign which has had huge success across the globe. You may have seen the campaign sprawled across billboards, bus sides, social media and fly posting.

Your Creative Challenge

Targeting the student population

So what is our challenge? Despite this campaign we’ve heard from some of you that Gap still isn’t on your radar. Millennials (also known as Generation Y) want to shop somewhere ‘cooler’ where out of the box ideas are the norm. This is where you come in. We need your creative brains to help us.

We want you to give students a reason to visit Gap. We need you to create a student brand campaign, taking inspiration from our heritage to generate ‘buzz’ and urgency, ultimately driving traffic into stores. Your visual brand campaign should be communicated through flyers, in-store signage, window vinyl and across all social media platforms speaking directly to you – the savvy student! The campaign will launch during Fresher’s Week 2015, promoting a huge 25% off student discount.

Inspiration

Immerse yourself in the world of Gap. Look at our social media platforms, visit our stores, heck even ask your parents why they loved Gap when they were students! We encourage you to visit our stores and speak to our store associates – they would love to brainstorm with you. Take note of our new tone of voice in-store and online, we are reinventing how we speak to our customers and we want you to be on board.

Considerations

We are a global brand so we need you to be respectful of this when making creative decisions – make sure you follow style guidelines which can be found in your project pack. During the student promotional period we will be launching our global Autumn campaign which will also sit alongside your student visual brand message. In short, we want your vision to speak to students locally in the UK while complementing our global brand campaign.

Mandatories

While you are free to bring your campaign to life in our stores and windows, there are some important points to consider.

Message must incorporate a 25% off promotion exclusive to students during fresher’s week.
Must use the Gap logo – cannot be changed or altered.
Inject Gap tone of voice – see Dress Normal campaign reference (additional tone of voice guidance can be requested by email).
You must show how a University Poster would work in the campaign.
Bonus points for in-store experiential event ideas!
Please note: no above the line deliverables required i.e. outdoor, television, cinema, radio and print.

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What do we want to achieve?

• get rid of the stigma attached to the store that it is for older generations.
• something vibrant that attracts young people
• tie a campaign together with freshers week

Research:

• Gap background - ethics, branding and clothes
• other successful student campaigns
• what do clothing stores that are popular with young people do successfully?