Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

GRIM GAP
 
Did the GAP just get gutted?  I’m watching ABC News right now (Sunday night), and the lead story is the discovery of an awful sweatshop in India where kids as young as ten were found cranking out GAP products. Let’s go to the video …
 
Indian kids sit on a concrete floor, working away, looking miserable.
 
A GAP tag on a shirt, apparently in the sweat shop, flashes onscreen.   
 
GAP’s president for North America, says the sweat shop violates GAP policy and is completely unacceptable.  
 
Now a bevy of models bursts onto the screen courtesy of a GAP ad.  They dance and flail in – but of course – t-shirts and khakis.  Back to shots of rail-thin Indian kids.   
 
Now, GAP’s Dan Henkle says, “one of our vendors did not ensure that this product … was not going to be made with child labor.”  The story ends with a note that the GAP will destroy clothes produced in the sweat shop.
 
How did those ninety seconds or so go for a troubled retail giant headed into the holiday season?  Not as bad as it could have. The two GAP reps appeared absolutely resolute in condemning the sweat shop and portraying its operators as rogue vendors.  They were fast on the response and showed concern in abundance.  The juxtaposition of the galloping GAP models and the Indian kids looked pretty bad, but that’s a socio-economic commentary on all of us, not just the retailer.
 
The coming days will tell the tale.  The GAP needs to take action to weed out all such rogue vendors.  If they don’t, consumers may turn hostile.  I passed a GAP today and noted (approvingly) that the company is giving a great deal of prominence to its Product Red corporate social responsibility campaign aimed at eliminating AIDS in Africa.  Now I’m wondering if the GAP could spend so much time and money putting together such a beautiful campaign, why can’t it ensure its vendors aren’t exploiting children?    
 
The GAP has been on the ropes for a while now.  Slow sales.  Pricey ad campaigns that missed the demo.  Pricey store makeovers that mostly just seemed to dim the lights.  Here’s hoping it moves quickly and surely to end sweat shop production.