Gap Inc. Debuts Encore To Unify The Four Brands | Fast Five Shorts
This Omni Talk Retail Fast Five segment, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, Quorso, and Veloq, explores Gap Inc’s launch of Encore, a unified loyalty program across Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta.
Chris and Anne debate whether loyalty consolidation can drive cross shopping and growth for the portfolio.
⏩ Watch the full episode here.
#GapInc #RetailLoyalty #OldNavy #Athleta #OmniTalk
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
Gap Inc. Has launched Encore, a new cross brand loyalty program spanning Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:Building on a house file of nearly 40 million active members, Encore introduces three tiers.
Speaker A:Core, Premier and All Access.
Speaker A:Always love it's three tiers.
Speaker A:It's never like seven tiers or 13 tiers.
Speaker A:It's always three.
Speaker B:That's just your, that's the business school motto, right?
Speaker B:You always have to break things out into three.
Speaker B:It's probably coming from someone, one of your peers at your business school.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's a consultant thing.
Speaker A:You give them two options that are good and one that's horrible.
Speaker A:So that's kind of what they're doing here, probably most likely.
Speaker A:But anyway, they're introducing three tiers with the updated earning thresholds, extended returns, birthday bonuses and new Encore Master.
Speaker A:And a new Encore MasterCard that earns four five times points at Gap Brands and three times on eligible apparel purchases elsewhere.
Speaker A:The program leans heavily into experiential rewards as well, which means exclusive fashion drops, early access to product launches and entertainment experiences.
Speaker A: ertainment Officer In January: Speaker A:And all four brands share a single points bank, giving Gap a unified cross brand view of consumer and customer spend.
Speaker A:And what do you think of Gap's Encore launch?
Speaker A:Is this the loyalty play that finally gives the brand portfolio a genuine growth engine or is it just glossed up loyalty points?
Speaker B:I, I don't know that we will.
Speaker B:I don't know yet.
Speaker B:That's the question.
Speaker B:I do love this.
Speaker B:As a loyal Gap customer, I do love this.
Speaker B:For the points consolidation, it never made sense to me that there were three different credit cards and three different loyalty programs.
Speaker B:You had Gap cash that you could use at some, but you couldn't.
Speaker B:You're all, you're all feeding into one larger Gap Inc.
Speaker B:So number one, I think that, you know, while it's just a loyalty program for now, my hope is that this means consolidation in other areas of the store and just making it one unified brand that I can shop.
Speaker B:And the credit card is another good example, like having one credit card that you can use across brands and gain five times more points.
Speaker B:Because those points really do add up and I've been using them for a long time, so I'm really excited to see them all come together.
Speaker B:I also think Think that it could encourage some crossover in.
Speaker B:Maybe I'm an Athleta shopper, but I've never shopped at Old Navy.
Speaker B:But now I have these points that I can use across all the labels.
Speaker B:It might prompt me to go into a store that I maybe haven't been to in a while, like an Old Navy or like a Gap.
Speaker B:So I think, you know, all boats rise, right?
Speaker B:If, if customers are keeping their money in the family, they're, they're driven to try another Gap banner instead of going to another store.
Speaker B:I think this could lead to probably some slower but some positive growth for, for Gap Inc. And that's on the loyalty part, the fashion tainment component.
Speaker B:I'm still kind of pausing on that one.
Speaker B:I'm going to reserve judgment until I see what really happens with the new ex Paramount woman leading that up.
Speaker B:So we'll see.
Speaker B:I'm going to reserve judgment on that.
Speaker B:But for now, I really like the combined loyalty program part of this.
Speaker B:But how about you?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that's a great.
Speaker A:I think those are great points.
Speaker A:I mean, I think, you know, at the end of this is just good smart retailing, you know, and I think back to having worked at the brand, too, I thought, you know, I never thought about this until you just mentioned it.
Speaker A:You know, I think, you know, if you look at Gap 20 years ago, there was, there was a good cohesion across all those brands.
Speaker A:Like, I felt like people knew that the same company was running all of them.
Speaker A:And I feel like that's kind of died off a little bit.
Speaker A:And to your point, it is a very frustrating experience to have to use different credit cards at all the different brands.
Speaker A:And, and why is that?
Speaker A:So if that's what they're going for here, I think it's, it's a big win and it potentially does get me cross shopping more and makes it easier for me, too, and makes me more.
Speaker A:Have more affinity to the brand.
Speaker A:But I'm with you.
Speaker A:Like, I, I'm not buying into the entertainment connection just quite yet.
Speaker A:I think there's a lot more proof that needs to be put into that pudding, so to speak, because that's just something that's really hard to scale.
Speaker A:It's really hard to make it impactful to a large degree to a large number of consumers.
Speaker A:You, you've got to really figure out the marketing side of that.
Speaker A:I'm hesitant on that, but I think it just seems like a good, smart move.
