Can You Spot the BIG Mistake Gap Made in Their New Ad?
A bunch of cool shit happened in 1969 - Woodstock, Neil Armstrong's moon walk, the successful implantation of the first artificial heart. All in all, it was a pretty amazing year. Iconic even. It was also the year that Gap was founded. That's why you see "1969" on everything from button flies to baseball caps at Gap stores around the world as the brand seeks to capitalize on the spirit of this incredible year in human history.
Given that Gap is trying to associate themselves with this year, one would assume that the images in their latest campaign were meant to reference the iconic events that took place then. In which case, the shuttle image below is clearly a reference to the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first man on the moon, right? The only problem is, that's not the Apollo 11 rocket.
This is the Apollo 11 rocket:
NBD. Most people wouldn't notice the difference anyway, right? Except that some science buffs actually did notice and called Gap out on Twitter for the mix-up, including Mashable's Miriam Kramer, who noted that the space shuttle was not launched until 1981.
AP science writer Seth Borenstein piled on, congratulating Miriam on her catch, but said he thought the image was actually most likely from 1982.
According toPopular Science, the image is most likely of the shuttle Discovery, which first launched in 1998, a full 29 years after the historic moon landing of 1969.
Kramer tweeted at Gap directly looking for answers.
Gap soon responded to her tweet, saying the ad was not meant to reference the Apollo 11 mission at all. "1969 is included in most of our ad pics. Its the year we opened, not meant to be the shuttle launch date. Sorry for confusion."
But whatever the human tweeting on Gap's behalf says, it's hard to believe the association was unintentional. True, some of the images in the campaign feel a little random. There is nothing overtly "1969" about palm trees.
Or wild horses.
Or surfers.
But the car burning rubber in this ad looks an awful lot like a 1969 muscle car of some sort or other, right? Not that I know anything about classic cars per se, but, again, the association seems obvious.
Not that any of this really matters all that much. At the end of the day, Gap made some nice-looking ads and that's more than a lot of brands can say. Although it is fun to think of scientists and space buffs trolling a major fashion brand online. Adorable even.
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