Gap Inc.'s Marketing Strategy in UAE

This assignment examines Gap Inc.'s marketing strategies for success in the UAE market. It suggests utilizing social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for targeted advertising and consumer understanding. The document also proposes offering special discounts, e-gift cards, and gifts to attract consumers. Furthermore, it recommends celebrity endorsements and sponsoring popular fashion shows to enhance brand visibility and appeal.

Running head: MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
Marketing For Managers
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to analyze the current market of Gap Inc and suggest strategies to
overcome the treats that are being faced by the company. In this report, answers of the questions
that highlight different management aspects of the company are being provided. The analysis
includes the marketing strategy of Gap Inc, chief competitors of the company, products that
needs to be removed or introduced, SWOT analysis and Marketing Mix of Gap. Finally, some of
the advertisement strategies are being suggested for the business expansion of the family.

2MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
Table of Contents
1. What do you understand with the market strategy of Gap?.........................................................3
2. Chief Competitor of Gap Inc. among H&M and Zara.................................................................4
3. Products that gap should introduce and withdrawal to enhance its competitive edge.................5
4. SWOT Analysis of Gap Inc........................................................................................................6
5. Four P’s for Gap Inc concerning UAE Market............................................................................7
6. Suggested Advertisement Strategy for Gap Inc..........................................................................9
Reference List................................................................................................................................10

3MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
1. Understanding the Marketing Strategy of Gap Inc.
Diversification is one of the chief marketing strategy of Gap Inc. Being a highly well-
known company, Gap’s marketing strategy is to capture a broad demographic of consumers
(Caniato et al. 2012). The company is one of the four largest retailers dominating the apparel
market of U.S. The company has five brands since 2010, namely, Old Navy, Banana Republic,
Atheleta, Gap and Piperlime. This diversification is done in order to attract consumers having
different taste of fashion and style. While Gap targets consumers who prefer classically styled
casual apparel within a moderate cost range, Old Navy focuses on fun, value and fashion for
young consumers and family. Apart from reasonably priced casual family apparel, Old Navy also
offers shoes, maternity wear, various personal care items and accessories to the consumers.
Banana Republic deals with highly sophisticated tailored and casual apparels, accessories, shoes
and personal care products targeting the higher middle class and elite consumers of US (Arrigo
2013). The brand Athlete offers high quality athletic apparels for women and the cost range is
little higher. Apart from these four brands that are available in the offline stores, Gap Inc also has
a brand called Piperlime which is an online store which offers both casual and high end fashion
footwear and handbag to men, women and children.
While this diversification strategy for market expansion of Gap was initially successful, in the
middle of 20s, the company lost a good number of consumers (Galbreth and Ghosh 2013).
Clients of the company got confused and eventually frustrated due to the complicated
diversification of the company. This result in loss of consumers and the company is still
struggling to gain back its consumer loyalty.
2. Chief Competitor of Gap Inc. among H&M and Zara
Considering the fact that Gap Inc is facing a huge lot of competition, Zara is considered
to be the chief competition of the Gap Inc. In 2008, Inditex, the parent company of Zara has
officially overtaken Gap Inc. and has become the world’s biggest fashion retailer.
The main reason behind Zara’s success is the multi-pronged approach of Inditex that
creates a closed loop. The company is very fast to get fashion to stores. The strategy of the
company of utilizing the shipping containers when sending back unsold merchandise for

4MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
recycling purpose, has not only reduced the manufacture cost of the company but also has gained
consumers attention as an eco friendly act. Besides that, Zara has expanded it business all over
the world and has registered a commendable profit of 6.3 billion dollar. Zara has reported to be
responsible for 66 percent of the overall growth of Inditex, the expansion of the company is
touching a new high (Kapferer and Bastien 2012). Another reason for the rapid growth of Zara is
considered to be its social media advertisements. According to survey, before the emergence of
social media, I was not possible for consumers to follow the latest trends in the market.
However, due to its 24*7 presence in social media, Zara is successfully attracting consumers
with their highly updated fashion apparels and accessories. The credit goes to highly successful
business model of Zara that keeps the consumers stick to the brand (Gamboa and Gonçalves
2014).
On the other hand, the story of Gap is completely different from that of Zara. Out of the
five brands of Gap Inc., only Banana Republic has performed well in the market. Old Navy, the
brand that sells apparel and accessories at a cheaper rate is still struggling to obtain consumer
equity.
3. Products that gap should introduce and withdrawal to enhance its competitive edge.
Considering the fact that Gap Inc. is gradually losing its consumers in the international
market, new market strategies including addition and removal of products is required to cope up
with the current market situation. One of the chief reasons behind Gap’s decision to close 25
percent of its North American Stores is issues with its women’s wear. The women’s wear with
knits and woven were manufactured during the winter (Jin et al. 2012). Majority of the consumer
did not like the collection due to the poor fitting and unappealing esthetic. Negative feedbacks
from the collection shook up the entire management team of Gap and the whole issue resulted in
departure of Gap’s Creative director Rebecca Bay.
Another issue was the crop tops of the brand Banana Republic. Even the brand president
Andi Owen accepted the fact that the company had made a too large bet on Crop tops. According
to Owen, the crop top collection not only lacks color varation and has chiefly focused on black
and white, but also is boxy and oversized. All this disasters has not only imposed negative

5MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
impact on the profit market of Gap Inc but has also resulted in loss of a huge amount of customer
loyalty.
Considering the fact that the company is still struggling to get back its equity, it is high
time for Gap Inc to introduce new products in its collection to attract consumers. Since Zara is
currently ruling the apparel market, Gap can look into their popular products collections like
leather plaited shopper bag, Navy double-breasted blazer or casual apparels like embroidered
boho jackets with pompoms, which are currently in rage (Kim and Ko 2012). Part from this,
since consumers are highly getting inclined towards animal printed coats and jackets, Gap Inc
can manufacture this product with a twist of their own innovative ideas.
4. SWOT Analysis of Gap Inc.
Strengths
 Dealership Teamwork of Gap is strong and hence the company can reach easily to Global
consumers.
 Being an experienced apparel industry, Gap has good Working knowledge. This helps the
company to adapt the current trends easily.
 Apart from apparels and accessories, the company also produces baby products.
Considering the fact that baby products are always in demand irrespective of market
fluctuations, this can be considered as strength of Gap Inc (Cortez et al. 2014).
 Efficient marketing through television, online and print media is another strength of the
brand.
 The brand manufactures several times less iconic products and has a reputation of selling
products that are long lasting and durable.
Weaknesses
 Highly competitive market along with limited market share has resulted in loosing
consumers and therefore decrement of overall profit of the company (Gap.com. 2018).
 Excessive fragmentation of the brands has imposed negative impact on the company
since the good number of consumers switched to other brands due to confusion and
frustration.

6MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
 High dependence of the company on external manufactures is another weakness of Gap
Inc.
 The company is failing to utilize social media and online marketing efficiently. As a
result, it is failing to stay updated with current consumer’s choices and thus is loosing the
market since past five years.
Opportunities
 The company should work on increasing its social media efficiency and online marketing
in order to understand the requirement of its consumers and to enhance its consumer
loyalty.
 Considering the fact that the company has still not expanded itself in global market, it
should open stores globally keeping the market of Asia and China as its chief focus.
 The company should merge with other fashion houses to boost sales.
 To increase consumer loyalty the company can get its brands endorsed by popular
celebrities.
Threats
 Highly efficient global competitors like Zara and H&M offer more fashionable clothing
in a much lesser value. This is one of the major threats for the company.
 Another major threat for the company is that the management of Gap Inc is still
struggling to turn around the business.
 Increased labor costs, risky global sourcing and manufacturing along with rapids changes
in the fashion industry are other factors that can be considered as threats for the company.
5. Four P’s for Gap Inc concerning UAE Market
Marketing mix of Gap Inc analyses and explain the market strategy of the company that
is needed to expand its business in UAE with the help of 4 Ps namely, Product, Price, Place and
Promotion (Armstrong et al. 2015).
Product
Being a well-known international apparel and accessories company, Gap Inc offers
products like jeans, jackets and T-shirts for daily life usage and in accessories they provide

7MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
handbags, shoes, jewelry, sunglasses and perfumes. In order to expand its business successfully
in UAE market, Gap needs to introduce conservative and multiple layer clothes beside their
original apparel collection (Khan, Rodrigues and Balasubramanian 2017). Gap can introduced
popular women and men wear like Shayla that is a popular traditional scarf and disdisha in its
collection to attract consumers in UAE. Short or body revealing dresses are strictly prohibited in
UAE. Thus Gap should keep in mind that UAE will not provide a good market for short skirts or
hot pants (Fernandes 2013).
Price
Considering the fact that Gap targets a vast range of consumers from middle class to elite
financial condition, it will not be tough for the company to attract consumers in UAE. Initially
the chief target of the company was elite consumers (Baker 2014). Since 2014, Gap understood
that consumers are getting inclined towards affordable products and hence it changed it strategy
of pricing its products.
Place
Being a popular company, Gap has a vast distribution network and a huge global
presence. There are over 3700 stores of Gap across the world. In UAE, the major marketing of
Gap is performed through online marketing. Offline stores of Gap are available in metro cities
like Dubai.
Promotion
In UAE, the company uses several numbers of promotional techniques like offering e-gift
cards or offline cards, which can be used in any stores within UAE. Other promotional
techniques of Gap Inc include online and print media advertising. The company also organizes
competitions and uses their own products as gifts (Okonkwo 2016).
6. Suggested Advertisement Strategy for Gap Inc
One of the chief strategies that need to be implemented by the company is to efficiently
use the social media as a online marketing platform. Gap needs to post more advertisements in
Facebook and Instagram not only to attract consumers but also to understand the requirements of
`consumers of UAE. Apart from this, the company can offer special discounts, e-gift cards and

8MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
gifts to consumers. Another major strategy that can be implemented by the company is
endorsement of itself by well-known celebrities and sponsoring popular fashion shows.

9MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
Reference List
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Arrigo, E., 2013. Corporate responsibility management in fast fashion companies: the Gap Inc.
case. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 17(2), pp.175-
189.
Baker, M.J., 2014. Marketing strategy and management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Caniato, F., Caridi, M., Crippa, L. and Moretto, A., 2012. Environmental sustainability in
fashion supply chains: An exploratory case based research. International journal of production
economics, 135(2), pp.659-670.
Cortez, M.A., Tu, N.T., Van Anh, D., Ng, B.Z. and Vegafria, E., 2014. Fast fashion quadrangle:
An analysis. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 18(1), p.1.
Fernandes, C., 2013. Analysis of counterfeit fashion purchase behaviour in UAE. Journal of
Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 17(1), pp.85-97
Galbreth, M.R. and Ghosh, B., 2013. Competition and sustainability: The impact of consumer
awareness. Decision Sciences, 44(1), pp.127-159.
Gamboa, A.M. and Gonçalves, H.M., 2014. Customer loyalty through social networks: Lessons
from Zara on Facebook. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.709-717.
Gap.com. (2018). Shop Women, Men, Maternity, Baby & Kids Clothes Online | Gap. [online]
Available at: http://www.gap.com/ [Accessed 4 Jan. 2018].
Jin, B., Jung, H., Matthews, D.R. and Gupta, M., 2012. Fast fashion business model: what, why
and how?. In Fashion supply chain management: Industry and business analysis(pp. 193-211).
IGI Global.
Kapferer, J.N. and Bastien, V., 2012. The luxury strategy: break the rules of marketing to build
luxury brands. Kogan page publishers.

10MARKETING FOR MANAGERS
Khan, Z.R., Rodrigues, G. and Balasubramanian, S., 2017. Ethical consumerism and apparel
industry-towards a new factor model.
Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., 2012. Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An
empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), pp.1480-1486.
Okonkwo, U., 2016. Luxury fashion branding: trends, tactics, techniques. Springer.. Luxury
fashion branding: trends, tactics, techniques. Springer.