Gap turns racial vandalism into the social media event of the season

Apparel brand Gap, in a surprisingly cool move, took on board Sikh model Waris Ahluwalia for its “Make Love” ad campaigns in the US. Little did the company know this would turn out to be one of the most successful social media stories in a while.

Even if the company knew that it was going to be hit by racism for having taken a Sikh model in its ad campaign, the company did not let this show. Gap’s “Make Love” series of advertisements feature multi-cultural models in classy advertisement poses. One of these, featuring Ahluwalia sporting a turban, was defaced somewhere in New York City recently.

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The act of vandalism was reported to the brand on Twitter by Arsalan Iftikhar, Senior editor at Islamic Monthly. He tweeted to Gap with an image of the billboard that now read “Make bombs” instead of “Make Love”. The vandal had also scribbled “Please stop driving taxis,” underneath the ad. In a smooth move, Gap took the conversation private at once, asking Iftikhar to send details about the location of the defaced ad to it over Direct Messages.

Watch and learn, folks

Then, surprisingly, Gap changed the header image of its Twitter profile to the photo of Ahluwalia’s ad that had been defaced. Laurels poured in for Gap over social media for this strong move. Check them out:

What’s more, Sikhs in the US have started a “Thank You, Gap” page on Facebook, sharing images and inspirational text about the ad. We’re pretty sure Gap did not set out to do this, but here’s social marketing done absolutely right.