Gap made headlines this fall when it partnered with rising girl group Katseye for a fall campaign that not only managed to resonate with younger cohorts like Gen Z but also delivered a competitive edge in the so-called denim wars. Now, the retail brand is hoping to ride that momentum with “Give Your Gift,” its emotional holiday campaign that is already showing promising results.
“Give Your Gift” centers around a 90-second spot set to a cover of the Miley Cyrus song “The Climb” by 20-year-old Sienna Spiro, who’s supported by a multigenerational choir of individuals with ages ranging from 8 to 72. Since its launch in November, the campaign has generated more than 30 million views, said Global CMO Fabiola Torres.
The latest iteration of “Give Your Gift” is an extension of the retailer’s holiday campaign from last year, which leveraged a cast of creators and rising talent in the music industry for an a cappella version of Janet Jackson’s “Together Again.” The campaign also rides on the heels of “Better in Denim,” its campaign with Katseye that achieved 8 billion media impressions and helped Gap forge a stronger connection with younger consumers and become the No. 6 adult denim brand in the U.S., up two spots from 2024.
Gap has continued to be intentional about its approach to Gen Z with its extension of “Give Your Gift,” explained Torres, though that doesn’t come at the expense of other generations, who are well-represented in the campaign’s creative.
“We wanted to shake it up this year to do it differently — bigger choir, newer song — as we’ve been really trending with Gen Z,” said Torres. “We’re just touching the surface, to be completely honest, because it has a lot of potential.”
Marketing Dive spoke with Torres, who joined Gap last spring from PepsiCo, to learn more about the strategy behind the denim brand’s holiday campaign, including why it sought out a multigenerational cast, how it approaches rising talent and how the team plans to follow its Katseye success.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
MARKETING DIVE: What inspired the extension of the ‘Give Your Gift’ campaign?
FABIOLA TORRES: More than an extension, I want to call it a platform. We’ve been dancing a lot, and we said, OK, let’s take a pause and do what we did a year ago, and that’s supporting emerging talent and taking a moment when the universe is [also] taking a moment.
I think just being relatable in the moment where everybody wants to slow down and be with their people — [“Give Your Gift” is] about being together … We thought that doing it again in a different way could be more honorable and build the platform. We’re very excited. The sentiment has been extremely positive, and especially as we launched it earlier in the season, we hope we can pick up more and more views for the rest of the season.
Why have partnerships with emerging talent been so crucial to Gap’s marketing strategy?
That’s in the DNA of our brand. We’re a 56-year-old brand, and it’s always about mixing seasoned talent with new songs or older songs with new talent. It’s about providing a platform. Gap represents inclusivity, self-expression, and [the idea that] all of us can have a chance, and that’s where we start the work.
Other marketers have similarly been focused on a multigenerational cast for their holiday campaigns. Why was this important for “Give Your Gift”?
We went very Gen Z with Katseye … We wanted to make sure that we remind everyone that we’re a multigenerational brand as well, and we wanted to be very intentional — it’s about the talent, your voice, it doesn’t matter how old you are.
How would you describe the sentiment of Gap consumers heading into the holidays?
I think it’s not just Gap consumers, it’s the world. When it comes to these things, these moments in time and this season, it’s all about reflection, it’s about trying to be positive, to add more positivity to the world, especially with the macro situation that we’ve been having this year and the past year. It’s always good to send a positive message.
I think everyone wants to have something good in their lives and that’s part of our briefs. If you hear the lyrics of “The Climb,” it’s about always getting better, and climbing to where you will be next, and it felt perfect for us. Everybody wants some positivity, everybody wants your environment to be better, and [at] Gap, we feel like we can take the driver’s seat as well and be part of this.
The latest iteration of “Give Your Gift” follows Gap’s partnership with Katseye earlier this year — a campaign that has proven to be particularly effective. What made it so successful?
There’s so many factors. I think we had an eye on them since they formed as a group … and it’s all about the opportunities that we were giving to them at the start, and then the opportunity they gave us as well to showcase a global point of view.
The energy was magical. I’ve been on so many sets in my career, and this particular one just felt right. It felt magic. When you find that chemistry with talent, you have to really take advantage in a good way and produce more content for the community. It was one of the biggest sets that Gap has done, if not the biggest one that has been done in the history of Gap.
How did the effort perform compared to the KPIs you set?
We knew that it was going to be the best one yet, especially in the last two years, but not at this level. Having 8 billion impressions ... it helped our category as well — denim is not an easy one when you have revenue and relevance together, and our CEO is very adamant on that as well, to say, if you want to drive relevance, you need to bring revenue, we’re a company. And this felt so right, and the community and consumers, especially Gen Z, were shopping all the way for the new styles.
