How GAP stays in the conversation when others fade

The brand’s secret: campaigns that feel like culture drops, not ads. We unpack the formula — with the full breakdown for members.

👋 Welcome to the Thursday edition of

#ForYou by Melissa Blum

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The KATSEYE x GAP spot has everyone talking — but it’s not a one-off. It’s the latest move in a playbook GAP has been running for decades to stay relevant and in the cultural conversation.

Today we’re looking back at how GAP has used celebrity, music, and movement to command attention — and pulling out the tactics you can apply at both big-brand and micro levels.

For members: The timeline of GAP’s biggest cultural hits since the ’90s + the strategy lessons you can apply directly to your own work.

+ recent exclusives: How classrooms have became the new content labs, Halloween is to Gen Z what Christmas is to Millennials, 💎Visibility is the currency: How celebrities and creators are trading posts for access

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How GAP has continued to stay relevant for decades

Everyone’s been obsessed with the Katseye GAP commercial which saw the up-and-coming girl group dancing to Kellis’ Milkshake. The spot couldn’t have come at a better time, offering a more inclusive and inviting approach to jeans right after AE’s awkward and ill received Sydney Sweeny one. Since its debut, it’s gone viral and reestablished the brands in the cultural zeitgeist ahead of the biggest shopping quarter.

This isn’t a one off. GAP has consistently managed to stay in the cultural conversation, making an otherwise residual legacy brand feel perennially cool.

GAP understands that to capture attention and maintain that "cool" factor, you need to pull together various cultural threads that showcase your brand's fluency in the language of the moment. Over several decades, GAP has strategically leaned heavily into music, celebrities, and striking visuals to achieve this, elevating their campaigns from simple ads to cultural touchstones. It's a strategy that has paid off, keeping them front and center in our minds, even as fashion trends have ebbed and flowed.

Through a brilliant focus on culture GAP has excelled where other heritage brands might struggle. To avoid a dusty image, GAP keeps it moving. They're not just selling clothes; they're selling a feeling, an aspiration, a piece of the current zeitgeist. And they do it with a savvy that's truly impressive. Today we’re deep diving GAP’s legacy of culturally relevant advertising, to reverse engineer their recipe for success.

Behind the paywall…

GAP doesn’t just advertise — they launch cultural moments. Every few years, a campaign lands that feels bigger than clothes and cements the brand back into the zeitgeist.

In the full member piece, we break down 9 of GAP’s most iconic ads from the past 27 years — and unpack the strategic levers (music, celebrity, movement) that make their formula still work today. ⬇️