All Good in the Hood

Posted by: Nikki   
November 27th,
2006

It’s time for Spot the Plot:

Have you seen Common in the Gap ads for Christmas? Y’all know I love me some Common, so I was extremely excited when I first saw the commercial. He’s the new spokesman for Gap’s hooded sweatshirts, sweaters and jackets. Bow Wow also has a commercial to be released as well for Gap’s hooded sweatshirts, sweaters and jackets.

Gap always has some innovative commercials with musicians and actors, which I think is cool. But maybe I was reading too much into these new Peace Love Gap commercials. I tend to over analyze shit when I’ve had too much eggnog to drink. But I was watching the commercial again last week and I was saying to self, “Is the Gap targeting the urban youth with this ad?”

Gap is calling this ad campaign Holiday in your Hood. You have 2 hip-hop artists selling your wares, hoodies specifically. Don’t get me wrong, I see you have other races sprinkled throughout the commercial, but c’mon dawg, we all know that the urban youth are the main ones wearing hooded sweatshirts and parkas.

If you surf the Gap website, you’ll see celebrities like Maria Bello, Stephanie Seymour, Diane Kruger, Helen Mirren, Taylor Hackford, Deepak Chopra, Claudia Schiffer and Seal wearing various hooded garments. That’s a broad range of individuals, right? How come Seal isn’t in the commercials singing about Peace Love Gap. Is it because the Gap thinks that he won’t reach that target audience for hoodies?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 9:47 am and is filed under Spot the Plot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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6 Responses for "All Good in the Hood"

Mwabi
November 27th, 2006 at 10:28 am   

I over analyze too, not a bad thing. The way I see it, it is being targeted to us but like everything else we won’t be the main consumer of the product.

I love Common and the commercial makes me happy every time.

mrs-tj
November 27th, 2006 at 11:06 am   

Even with the commerical I still don’t feel they are targeting “us”. Just “urban” white kids. But of course that is just my opinion. I still Love me some gap though.
Holla!

Nikki
November 27th, 2006 at 11:07 am   

I feel you Mwabi, it’s not like you see the brothas posted up in the Gap, but the ad execs sure want our money, because that’s really the sole purpose of this Holiday in your Hood campaign. To me, if they weren’t targeting the urban market, they would have had one of the other celebrities doing the commercials for them instead, but they specifically had hip-hop artists to rap during these commecials.  Is Deepak Chopra not deep enough to reach the public?

Amadeo
November 27th, 2006 at 11:38 am   

I see that being an easy conclusion to reach. I was in a training where this brother talked about how companies use that urban imagery to sell to us…but don’t want to hire us when we look the same way. I also have to agree with Mrs-Tj, anything they want young white kids to buy is easily sold by putting a young black person into.

melette
November 28th, 2006 at 9:29 pm   

I was thinking the same thing.

chobrada
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:51 pm   

What about Common’s motives in participating in said campaign… ? Integrity people… that’s what it’s about. Is he done putting food on his table through heart-fealt musical expression? This ad is boo-boo and Common is a sell-out. Not that I’d be able to boycott shopping at the Gap, due to the fact that I’ve never rocked a single item of their clothing… but I will refrain from ever picking up another Common album. This ad has serious potential to retire his name from the hip hop scene.

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