Gap's Revival | Back in Blue | 2

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s late 2023, and Gap’s new CEO Richard Dickson is trying to revive the brand’s fading fortunes. Dickson is the man who rescued Barbie from cultural irrelevance and turned her into a blockbuster movie star. To do the same at Gap, Dickson finds out that he’ll have to change Gap’s culture — one that puts a cheerful spin on even the bleakest financials. Dickson also must win back the imagination of shoppers. For that, he’ll try to enlist a big-name fashion designer while pumping up Gap’s ads with some of the hottest pop tracks. But that will put Gap on a cultural collision course with another denim powerhouse. Now, the question is: Who’s got the better jeans?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's fall 203.
0:10.5	At Gap Incorporated San Francisco headquarters.
0:13.6	A group of top Gap executives files into a glass-walled conference room overlooking the Bay Bridge.
0:19.3	The view is serene, but the mood is tense. Sales
0:23.7	are down again across all brands, and the company is still struggling to regain its cultural
0:30.0	relevance and keep pace in the digital retail world. They recently hired a new CEO, 52-year-old
0:37.1	Richard Dixon. Dixon is tall and slender, with-year-old Richard Dixon.
0:38.5	Dixon is tall and slender with shoulder-linked curly brown hair, and he's brought the team in for a wake-up call.
0:46.0	He walks to the front of the room and points to a large screen.
0:50.2	On the screen is the Gap's website.
0:53.2	This site is a mess.
0:55.1	As he talks, Dixon points to the homepage where giant bold banners scream discounts.
1:00.8	50% off over here, 75 over there, two times the loyalty points.
1:05.7	This doesn't feel like a brand.
1:08.0	Feels like a flea market.
1:10.6	Dixon shakes his head. The website is all
1:13.7	promotions, no identity. It's too overwhelming. Makes everything feel transactional. Look, we're not
1:20.8	fostering emotion. Instead, we've lost our brand narrative. We're just shouting sales.
1:30.3	One executive nervously tries to interject.
1:31.4	But Richard... We've lost the story of our brand and our financial footing at the same time.
1:36.3	Look, this has got to change.
1:39.9	Pacing the room, Dixon has met with anxious stares.
	...

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