Relevance is a sport: Gap’s Richard Dickson on swinging, missing, and winning

Gap was never uncool. It just disappeared. CEO Richard Dickson joins Rapid Response to explain how he's bringing it back, using the same pop culture playbook he used to resurrect Barbie at Mattel. He breaks down why he tracks "brand love" metrics on a dashboard hourly, why Sydney Sweeney's viral jeans ad was actually good news for the whole industry, and why the biggest risk a brand can take is playing it safe. Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:09Speaker 02

  To some extent, what happened to Gap? We got spooked with some of the swings and ultimately it became very safe and therefore not very interesting. And so to get people interested, you have to be interesting. Our cat's eye campaign. I mean, we were trending number one on TikTok within 24 hours. I mean, if we had said three years ago, do you think Gap brand is going to be trending on TikTok, let alone trending as number one on search? No one would ever believe that. If we're not swinging, we're never going to hit.

• 2:50Bob Safian?

  That's Richard Dixon, CEO of Gap Inc., the business housing Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Athleta. I sat down with Richard at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival in France to understand how he's applying a playbook he used at Mattel to the challenges at Gap. The secret, he says, is leaning into pop culture. Richard talks about why Sydney Sweeney's viral jeans ad was surprisingly good for the industry, even though it didn't come from the Gap, and why he tracks brand love metrics on a dashboard every day. Plus, timely lessons around the relationship between profit and social purpose, the need to keep taking risks after failure, and more. So let's get to it.

• 3:33Bob Safian?

  I'm Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response.

• 3:43Bob Safian?

  I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Richard Dixon, the CEO of Gap. Thanks for being here.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Bob, it's good to be here.

• 3:51Bob Safian?

  Before Gap, you were at Mattel when Barbie was a little tarnished and then brought her into her glory.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:59Bob Safian?

  You went to Gap, also on a little bit of a lull. Like, do you like the turnaround of taking an iconic brand to someplace else?

• 4:07Speaker 02

  It seems I like that pain. I like that pain, yeah. Actually, it is true. I love iconic brands that had a breakthrough and then ultimately through their lifespan, had peaks and pits. I think Barbie is a great example of that. There are others, and certainly the Gap story is one of them as well.

• 4:27Bob Safian?

  Do you think about it as renovation? Do you think about it as sort of restarting, refounding?

• 4:32Speaker 02

  I think about it as revitalization. And to the extent that, you know, you have to study a brand's history. Ultimately, what made it great to begin with? Why was it interesting? Why were people interested?

• 4:45Bob Safian?

  To find that core again?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  To find the essence, the sort of what was the breakthrough that inspired such success? And then along the way with brands, certainly that I've been a part of, they're generational. And so they go through trials and tribulations and a lot of, let's say, outside influences that changed the brand. But ultimately, at some point, those brands either lose their way or reinvent themselves to be relevant. And in the case of what I have found interesting, it's getting involved in brands that arguably have lost their way and need to find that revitalized narrative to be relevant again. And I think for me, you know, my experience in doing that has a methodology, but it's really about the execution of that methodology that makes the success or doesn't.

• 5:31Bob Safian?

  Well, so far, the success has been strong. You've had nine quarters of positive sales, right? Market values up to $8.5 billion. And the driver that you've pointed to connecting all this is pop culture, which is, for a lot of business people, seems kind of soft.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think, you know, pop culture, it sounds simple, does hard. Moving at the speed of culture, staying relevant, particularly for brands that have history, is difficult. And in the context of brands that have history, these brands started when it was TV and print and outdoor. Being where your consumer is today means being everywhere. That's very difficult to do. And ultimately, to stay relevant is a sport. And that, when you get it right, relevance can drive revenue. And so when you only concentrate on numbers and deliverables, a brand could lose its way. Because ultimately, you start to make decisions that are financially based,

• 6:35Speaker 02

  not necessarily narrative or brand-based. And that's when you start to potentially fragment the dialogue with consumers because you're driving a commercial proposition, but not necessarily one that really drives that consumer authenticity.

• 6:50Bob Safian?

  That emotion.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  That emotion. I mean, brands are relationships.

• 6:53Bob Safian?

  Yeah.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Purely. And it doesn't matter what category they're in. You have a relationship with a brand. And when that brand fragments that in any way, you lose trust. And trust is the foundation of any brand relationship. And once that's fractured, it takes a long time to regain it. And at some point, we lost the storytelling and became more about the stuff.

• 7:14Bob Safian?

  The conversation often around retail and fashion apparel brands is that it is about fashion, it's about style, and you sort of have to stay up with the pace of the style. The clothing itself is what drives it. Obviously, you wouldn't say the clothing doesn't matter, but like, how do those things go together?

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Look, the essence of any consumer product business is the product. So you've got to have a product proposition that connects to consumers. In our case, fit, fabrication, value, style. I mean, getting the product right is no joke.

• 7:49Bob Safian?

  And that wasn't the first thing when you came in? You said like, oh, that's what I have to fix first?

• 7:55Speaker 02

  There's no first because really, it's an orchestra. You know, it's everything, from the product to the marketing, to the staff, to the people.

• 8:02Bob Safian?

  To the stores, right?

• 8:03Speaker 02

  The sights, the sounds, everything. The shipping, the logistics, when you have thousands of stores. It's really a complex conversation internally to get right. And so we laid out a very set agenda with strategic priorities that focused the company, by the way, 80,000 people around the company, around our strategic objectives. And the first one was fundamentally, we have to just run a better business. We need financial and operational rigor. We need to understand, you know, how much we've got and to be more effective and efficient about it. And then run, as a retailer, a smart open to buy, smart bets, chasing some things, managing the business in a way that really kind of is agile, but disciplined.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  And then it is about the cultural relevance, telling the story. About the product, about the brand connects people to that story. And storytellers need to be, you know, great, great brand narrators. And I mean, that, that is what, when you find a good brand, it's a good story. And granted, the, the deliverable is actually the product because you could drive traffic, you could drive interest. And if you get there, it doesn't fit, it's too expensive, I don't like it. You, you, you don't have the conversion. The magic happens when you have great product and great storytelling and great execution. And not everything is going to go right all the time, but once you start that practice, you can create that flywheel.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  For you, you, you sort of knew that maybe the, the product wasn't going to be your personal sweet spot, that you would bring people in.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  I'm not a clothing designer, no, but I, but I think probably what I realized early on, particularly with scaled businesses, it's a team sport. There, there's, sure, there's vision and there's, there's leaders that have the conviction to move things along, but you can't do it alone, you know? And so you need to bring in and surround yourself with the best talent that are better than you at exactly what, you know, you need them to do. And so I think of myself more as a conductor, bringing in the musicians and creating an orchestra that plays together. You know, at the beginning of an orchestra, you have, you know, when the symphony is tuning up, right? And, and there's no harmony.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  But then the conductor starts and everybody starts to play together and it's a magical moment. I would say as a metaphor, when I got to Gap Inc., there was a lot of tuning up. Really, good musicians not necessarily playing together. And so orchestrating that, bringing in right musicians to play with each other and bringing it into a more harmonious state, I think, is the role that I play as the leader.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Well, and, and you have a, a feel for pop culture too, I think. And that, and that, that emphasis, which is not something that at least Gap just before was leaning into, right?

• 10:54Speaker 02

  For sure. Look, I think there's a taste level, you know? I mean, we're, we're in a business that nobody needs us. We have to create want. You, you create demand and to some extent, it is a taste level business. Fashion is entertainment. It's storytelling, it's, it's feel, it's fabric, it's fit. What we do builds confidence. You look in the mirror, you feel good, you're out in the world. If we can do that for you, for our customers, that's essentially the, the sort of secret sauce that's not such a secret. So I would argue that I have, you know, certainly a taste level that can be appreciated. But also I, I would think of myself probably more as an architect of branding. You know, there, there's edits that need to be made. You know, you used to walk into one of our stores and arguably there are some stores

• 11:38Speaker 02

  you still walk into in our portfolio where, you know, the message is not coming across as clear. And we edited a lot of stuff out of our assortment and all of a sudden you start to see the storytelling. What do the merchants really believe in? What do we want our consumers to really believe in that we want them to share in that experience? A denim shop, a khaki shop, a fleece shop. These are things that speak to consumers without somebody necessarily taking them through it. And I think that is to some extent, the road that we're on right now.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  I noticed that you hired a chief entertainment officer, which is not a title you see at, certainly at most retailers. Is Gap a pop culture brand the way Barbie is like, are we going to see a Gap movie? I mean, how?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  You never know.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  You never know, like?

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I think, look, first off, fashion is entertainment. It is. I mean, whether you're looking on the runways, look at sports today, the tunnel. What are they wearing in the tunnel? Fashion is entertainment. Once as you, you sort of embrace that, you, you have to sort of embrace it to the extent that you need to start to think about storytelling and what are forms of entertainment? In our case, it's music, it's art, it's film, it's events. These are experts and we need the expertise to actually drive those with authenticity. So of course you need a chief entertainment officer. Of course you need talent that really can take you into those places.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  To, to authentically align with you.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Look at the, you know, conversation that we're having around Gap today. It's about music. It's about fashion. It's about our content. It's about our media mix model. That's the story we're telling. But then when you get to our stores or you get that product, you feel like, oh, this is now my best friend again. And so for us, we have to keep that narrative and, and storytelling continuously going. And that is the speed of culture that today is price of entry for a brand.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Unlike some CEOs, Richard acknowledges that his expertise is more about brand orchestration than about the company's core product. So how might AI muddy those orchestration waters? And how can leaders stay motivated to keep taking risks after failure? We'll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

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• 15:58Speaker 00

  Before the break, Gap's Richard Dixon talked about how he's leaning into pop culture to turn around the company. Now, Richard explains why he's tracking brand love metrics at his desk every day and why striking out should never deter a leader from swinging again and again. Let's dive back in.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  You know, some CEOs get obsessed with watching the stock price all the time, even though few like to admit it. But you, you've said you look at a different metric hourly? I don't know if this is right, a dashboard called brand love?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  I do. Yeah. Where'd you get that from? You know, yeah.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  It sounds a bit distracting though, like looking, looking that often. I mean, I, you know, it sounds like when I got lost in my TikTok feeds, like what?

• 16:44Speaker 02

  It can be, it can be, but I, I find, first of all, retail is detail and you're, you're in it every hour. We have a flash that we could look at and say, how are we doing? And when we're doing well, you should ask, why are we doing so well? And when we're not doing well, you say, why are we not doing well?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  And so these are sales numbers?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Well, there's sales metrics. I have a dashboard in my office that has graphs and, and sales metrics. And then there's another dashboard that measures brand love, brand search, attributes that we're measuring with our consumers in the context of receptivity to our narratives, to our media mix.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  And you're tracking this every day, all the time?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  We're tracking it every day, all the time.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  And it's not distracting, it's guiding?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  I believe it's the information that you need to drive the business. And if you're not curious about the work and what's working or what's not working, this is not a business for you. It really isn't.

• 17:40Bob Safian?

  And you see it that fast when you're when something which which is new in the way, I guess, both the speed of culture and the speed of business work.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I mean, you can see it as soon as it hits the marketplace. I mean, even some of our, you know, Gap work, our cat's eye campaign. We were trending number one on TikTok within 24 hours. I mean, if we had said three years ago, do you think Gap brand is going to be trending on TikTok, let alone trending as number one on search? No one would ever believe that. But in the context of the data that we could receive with that data, we can then add multiple ways of sharing more storytelling, expanding that concept, being motivated by the insights that we're gathering on a daily basis, which moves the organization forward. We see that with what sells also. You know, you see when a product sells, you see when it doesn't. When it doesn't, it's not going to get better. I mean, a product that doesn't sell.

• 18:32Bob Safian?

  Take it off the shelf.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Move it through the system. Yes, it's a it's a markdown and it is what it is. But that's the business of the business.

• 18:39Bob Safian?

  You know that that's going to happen with all these things, with brand campaigns, with with products, right?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  100%. If we're not swinging, we're never going to hit. There's going to be misses, but the objective is to have more hits than misses and ultimately not necessarily reward the misses, but acknowledge that we swung and missed. So what do we learn from that? Why didn't it work? That element of dialogue is a really important part of the conversation in our company. And I think what leaders today need to embrace is the ability to feel comfortably uncomfortable. You've got to take shots on goal. You've got to take swings in order to move the business forward. And the biggest risk of it all is not taking risk.

• 19:23Bob Safian?

  Every day you're getting information that's this is going well and you're getting information that this is going badly. And like, how do you know what the balance is in it's going through? And do you or do you just decide I'm going to be optimistic and emphasize the things that are going well? Or?

• 19:39Speaker 02

  I'm a consummate optimist and I I love the challenge. We got bad news or something didn't work. It's process of editing. That didn't work. We got to figure out what does work. You don't let it get you down. You let it inspire the the next sort of breakthrough. Sometimes you're ahead of the game, you know? Sometimes we might have been too far ahead and it was a good idea, strategically well intended, flawed in terms of timing or strategically well intended and flawed execution. And in some cases, some dialogue, and there's a lot of companies that have this. Well, we tried that. We tried that. We tried that. And it's not that it wasn't the right try, but for whatever reason, the execution or the timing was off. Try again.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Try again. And when you do hit it, that team player and that cultural, you know, the spark can drive incredible momentum into a business.

• 20:34Bob Safian?

  Well, on the flip side, when when people are saying we tried that, we tried that, you stop trying anything.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Exactly right. And that's when the business really it's deer in a headlight. You don't try anything. And you become incredibly safe. And arguably, that that is to some extent what happened to Gap.

• 20:50Bob Safian?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  And our brands, you know, we we we got spooked with some of the swings and ultimately became very safe and therefore not very interesting. And so to get people interested, you have to be interesting. And that is ultimately, I think, becoming what is more connecting our consumers back to our brands is we're interesting.

• 21:12Bob Safian?

  And so even like the Sydney Sweeney stuff that was a little controversial, like, that's okay. It's great. It's great.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's great for the industry, you know? I mean, we're we're in an industry. Obviously, we want to be the winners in the industry. But when the industry is driving creativity, it should inspire better competition. You know, when you look left and you look right and you go, well, that's pretty good. And they're out there doing that. You go like, okay, like, let's go. And so I I think we're inspiring better work in the industry. And I think the industry is doing better work on their own. And I think it moves us as an industry forward. And obviously, you know, our goals and ambitions are be to the to be the best of the best. But we've got, you know, we've got a long way to go before we can claim that.

• 21:54Bob Safian?

  You announced new sustainability goals this year, along with a partnership called Get Blue with Matt Damon's water.org. Talk around sustainability has kind of been on the wane. It has not been a hot topic lately. Why do this now?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Sustainability is is one dynamic of what we'll call purpose in the context of, you know, Gap Inc.'s brands. We've always been purposeful and arguably the more profit we drive, the more purposeful we can be. And and purpose and profit have an interesting integration. And throughout our history, you know, we've always been a thoughtful citizen, if you will, not only of the communities that we live in, but the the world and the consumers that we serve. Our our origin story, as you may know, started with one store in San Francisco called The Generation Gap. And our founder, Doris Fisher, crossed out generation and it became the Gap. But the original intent was to bridge the generation gap.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  And that's a very purposeful statement unto itself. And so as our company has evolved with Old Navy and Banana Republic and Athleta and all the things that we've done over time, we've evolved that narrative into bridging gaps to create a better world. And one of the gaps that we take a lot of pride in bridging is the sustainability efforts to bridge the climate gap. Within that, it gets very complicated very quickly. And so we've chosen water as the leading initiative that we can have real impact for. And to be blunt, we can't do what we do without water. I mean, you know, to make denim and denim washes and to feed cotton, cotton's a thirsty plant, we need water. So we use a lot of water and water is a scarce commodity. And so it's a responsibility that we have to recognize that

• 23:41Speaker 02

  and do what we can to recycle, reuse, replenish water and get access to clean water in places where we manufacture our product. And so, yes, it sounds like a nice to do, but it's an essential to do. 50% of our GDP is nature. We're partners with nature. So it is a strategic objective for us.

• 24:05Bob Safian?

  So I can't have a conversation with with the CEO today and not ask about AI. How do you think about it for your business? How disruptive? I mean, it's certainly having an impact in culture.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  It is an essential part of our lives today. Like it or don't like it, learn to love it.

• 24:23Bob Safian?

  Because it's going to be here.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  It is here and is here to stay. And if we don't embrace it and acknowledge it as a valuable tool, then I think you're going to be, you know, particularly for businesses, left behind. We're going to move to a place where the entire business is based on it. It's an operating platform. It doesn't just enable things. It actually is the platform for which everything is going to sit on. And we are evolving in that direction. I mean, we're making tremendous strides and making significant investments in technology, which a lot of it is AI based. It is, in fact, impacting our business in a positive way. Everything from consumer insights to design and development to the speed which we can sort of digest information.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  And so I find it an incredibly exciting chapter. It's a bit daunting, but once you sort of jump in that pool and swim around and get a little bit, you know, warmer in it, I think it's the practice that we we all need to do. Right now, it's more sort of behind the scenes as a system, but I actually think it's going to get more and more consumer facing.

• 25:31Bob Safian?

  Does that mean that I'm there going to be fewer humans working in your store? Or like?

• 25:37Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I don't think we first of all, I don't think we think like that. But I do think that the the experience from digital to physical and physical to digital will will become more seamless. And in the context of us knowing you and knowing your style and knowing who you are and knowing what you bought.

• 25:55Bob Safian?

  But you have to you have to reinforce that trust element for your brand for me to share all that with you too, right?

• 26:01Speaker 02

  100%, yeah. And then again, that goes back to the fundamentals of brand. Even in, you know, the the time that passes, it's all about trust.

• 26:11Bob Safian?

  The retail experience, I mean, it's so varied now, right? Like, what will a Gap store look like in 2030? Do you know yet? Or?

• 26:22Speaker 02

  You know, for me, I think we are constantly making progress, not necessarily perfection. It's nice to imagine perfection, but every day in retail is another aha moment of something we could have done better. And so I think we're constantly evolving. I mean, even in our remodels right now, we've done remodels for Gap, remodels for Bonanno, remodels for Old Navy. We see progress, but not perfection. And so every remodel-

• 26:47Bob Safian?

  And the whole way you have to think about it is different. It's like, you're not going to remodel once, you're going to keep remodeling, right?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Every time. And so you have to think about, by the way, store design in the context of when does it need to get refreshed again?

• 26:57Bob Safian?

  Because it's expensive to do all that, too, right?

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Certainly is. And these are all the things that you need to consider. But the reality of stores, I think, is going to become even more important as consumers are looking for human experiences, for places where we can connect, where you can actually feel the product, try it on, listen to the music, hear the sounds, get the service, have community. I believe that is going to become more and more important. And if you look at Gen Z and even Alpha, there's a return to a bit of analog versus digital. And I don't mean it literally, but I do recognize that, you know, putting down your phone, having a human experience, what's happening in sports today is incredible.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  You see these places where humans and people are gathering, and it creates emotional connection and unity. And I think retail could be a really important part of that process.

• 27:54Bob Safian?

  What do you feel like is at stake for Gap right now?

• 27:58Speaker 02

  I think the recognition that we are an iconic American brand that shapes culture. And I think we have arguably woken up. And I think we're a brand where people never didn't like us. They just wondered what happened. You know, what happened to Gap? I used to go, I used to love it, and then something happened, and we sort of disappeared for a while. And so I think now we're back. And we're back on the cultural conversation. And now it's a question of what do we do with it? And I think truly, when you think about the word Gap, it is the space between us. And so what better space today to bring people together than in the gap between us? And we take that seriously. And I think you're going to see over time, that cultural connection

• 28:43Speaker 02

  and that conversation gets stronger and more powerful as we get into more of our flywheel.

• 28:49Bob Safian?

  Well, our world certainly needs more, more closing of those gaps, bridging of those gaps.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  No doubt.

• 28:55Bob Safian?

  Thanks for doing this today, I really appreciate it.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Thank you, it's been fun.

• 29:01Bob Safian?

  There can sometimes be something shallow and sweaty about a company hungering for relevance, trying too hard, latching on to every viral meme. What differentiates a successful reinvention is genuine curiosity about culture. And as Richard notes, a willingness to take swings that don't land in the quest for greater knowledge and better understanding. The deer in the headlights phenomenon that Richard describes, fear of taking inaction because actions have gone badly in the past, it's an understandable reaction to uncertain times, but it's not effective or inspiring. I followed Gap for a long time, and yet it never occurred to me that the brand could stand for bridging gaps in our world.

• 29:43Bob Safian?

  It's an appealing aspiration and the kind of relevant storytelling that fits this moment. So what story are you telling? And how might it benefit from some new twists? If it's good enough for Barbie and Gap, it might be good enough for you, too. I'm Bob Safian, thanks for listening.

• 30:11Speaker 00

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  so that by the time you leave Summit, you are fired out of a cannon, ready to run through walls to do better in the world with the agency that you actually have. I hope to see you there. Visit mastersofscale.com/summit.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Every business hits the same wall the moment your business outgrows the systems that got you here. Spreadsheets everywhere, five different logins, data scattered across entities that don't even talk to each other. If your finance team spends more time finding data than using it, that's when you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite is the AI-native ERP solution that's powerful, painless, and proven. Built for businesses scaling fast without the complexity that usually comes with it. From the makers of QuickBooks, learn more at intuit.com/erp.

• 31:54Speaker 04

  Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  There's going to be two types of companies. Those who are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't.

• 32:02Speaker 06

  How do we build a future that is human-centered?

• 32:07Speaker 07

  I'm Rana Elkhayubi. And on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.

• 32:38Bob Safian?

  Rapid Response is a Wait What original. I'm Bob Safian, our executive producer is Eve Trow. Our senior producer is Alex Morris, and our associate producer is Masha Makutonina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli and Brian Pugh. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Lital Malad. For more, visit rapidresponseshow.com.

• 33:14Bob Safian?

  Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday, we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely, from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from the devil wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find. Just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.