Born to Fit

This past August, the Gap released its 1969 premium denim jean collection. The Gap was also celebrating its 40th anniversary. The launch of the collection entailed in-store parties, the creation of a Facebook page and most importantly, celebrity endorsements.

As I mentioned previously, companies often use celebrities to endorse their products because they have "stopping power." Their popularity is used to stop the consumer and "draw attention to advertising messages in a very cluttered media environment" (Belch 184). However, most of the time, celebrity endorses often possess an image that the company wants to project onto the product. The Gap aimed to make this collection a testament to the fact that this classic store brand is for everyone, thus the campaign mantra: "Born to Fit."

The new premium jeans collection from The Gap

has a style that fits every body type, including "petite,"

"athletic build," "pear-shaped" and "lanky."

While the phrase, "Born to Fit" seems to immediately apply that the jean collection is physically for any shape or size, The Gap pushed to appeal to a widespread audience, attempting to associate their line with a unique and free-spirited lifestyle. In order to do this, The Gap appealed to celebrity endorsers. These individuals are not so famous that the common consumer of pop culture could identify them. In this way, these celebrities were carefully selected so that their own unique life story would project upon the product (the jean collection). Each of these celebrity "stories" are captured with a variation of the "Born to Fit" catchphrase. Below is a list of the endorsers:

• Anni Rossi, a young singer, violinist and keyboardist from Minnesota who was born to play.
• Tom Szaky, a young Harvard drop-out named the "No. 1 CEO Under 30" by Inc. Magazine in 2006 [beating Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg] for his work as co-founder of TerraCycle, Inc., the world's first products made from and packaged in waste, who was born to inspire.
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach, a stage and screen actor known for The Lake House, John Adams and most recently The Marc Pease Experiencewith Ben Stiller and Jason Schwartzman, who was born to be curious.
• Melissa Kushner, founder and executive director of Goods for Good, a non-profit organization that provides essential goods to children in Africa, who was born to do good.
• Eisa Davis, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, actor, singer and songwriter known for writing Angela's Mixtape, who was born to do it all.
• Anna Gaskell, an American photographer from Iowa who has participated in Moving Pictures at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, was born to embrace uncertainty.
• Alessandro Nivola, an American actor from Massachusetts known for roles in Best Laid Plans and Jurassic Park III, who was born to take risks.
• Sonya Walger, a British actress known for her role on HBO's Tell Me You Love Me and the star of ABC's new series Flash Forward, who was born to feel.
• Cassidy, actress, songwriter and former lead singer of female rock quintet Antigone Rising, who was born to empower.

There is something quite remarkable about this selection of individuals to endorse the brand and how specific the company was in tailoring its image. This list consists of thinkers, innovators and artists, who represent qualities of deep emotion, altruistic philanthropy, and distinct leadership. The celebrity endorsers are not only meant to create the collection as representative of all-American brand, but also individuals that inspire and in turn, consumers would be compelled to buy in order to imitate their free-spirited style.

I think this is a very interesting and complex use of the celebrity endorsement. This type of advertising might be even more powerful than ads with the most famous stars because they do not embody the epitome of beauty or glamour, yet still possess the ability to persuade and influence the consumer.