Today, The first piece from Gap's collaboration line with Kanye West dropped. It's Blue. It's Minimal. It's Bold. It's a statement, and It's sold out. So let's talk about the ad for it in the New York Times. We're a creative agency remember? Advertising is what we do.
In a double-spread ad in the New York Times, Gap advertised the upcoming (and already released and sold out by now) collaboration with a statement. No Copywriters, No Words. Just the jacket and a QR code that direct to the product page where you can purchase it. This is statement is a trope to the collection's character. Minimal, but loud. A Kanye West produce doesn't really need advertising, it does it for itself, with the huge amount of power West accumulated ("No one Man Should Have All That Power").
Ads Like that have an impact. They're "disruptive". The last thing you expect to see in the middle of a newspaper is a mir empty page. Minimalism draws attention. Visuals are stronger than written words because everything in the world is made out of words. There are endless ways to describe a visual as the human mind associates everything with words. Words are kind of like the file format of the human mind, you see - As the brain creates connections in milliseconds without us noticing, a disruptive ad might be much more effective than a well-written headline, because the brain already has made its connections that the ad is for this jacket and the QR will lead him to a purchase destination with more info, due to his previous experience. Furthermorere, You've probably already heard about this upcoming collaboration, You've seen it online, probably on social media, you forgot it's about to drop soon, and BAM, It's right there in your face on 2 whole pages of the newspaper to remind you.
This ad sits amazingly well with both brand's values, and of course, delivered a great result as the Blue Puffer Jacket is SOLD OUT (Well, it would've probably also been sold out in less than a day, without this ad, but you got the point....).