Can Kanye West Save Gap? What Maps & Location Data Reveals
On September 29 2021 Kanye West and Gap dropped the newest iteration of their partnership "The Perfect Hoodie". In a matter of hours online pre-orders for this hoodie sold out and delivered the most sales in a single day in gap.com history (according to the company).
The world took notice with Kanye himself commenting: "Ain't nobody care about the @gap till [YEEZY] went to the gap". Indeed the effect of Kanye West's partnership with Gap should not be understated– the original 10-year partnership saw Gap's stock price soaring as high as up to 40% the day of the announcement (June 26 2020). The collaboration thus far has been a slam dunk bringing YEEZY merchandise to a new audience to the Gap brand. Indeed the company announced that 70% of customers who bought the hoodie were new to the brand.
Collaborating with a polarizing figure like Kanye is a bold move by the Gap akin to Nike's Colin Kaepernick ads. It represents a step-change away from the brand's suburban image in favor of diversity and comes amidst a plan to shutter 350 different Gap and Banana Republic stores by the end of 2023.
But will the collaboration be enough to reinvigorate Gap's brick-and-mortar growth and activate a new customer?
In this post Spatial are announcing the PersonaLive Social Segmentation System on CARTO's Data Observatory and answering this question in three steps:
- Determine top Kanye following segments
- Use CARTO to map counts of Kanye followers near Gap locations
- Analyze the effect the announcement had on Gap stores near Kanye followers
| This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 960401. |
