A blur of blue denim, a simple white background, and a troupe of dancers moving to “Milkshake” by Kelis. The viral GAP’s X KATSEYE “Better in Denim” video is not a typical commercial, it’s a whole performance. Instead of pitching a brand’s product, it pulls you into a moment. Modern marketing isn’t just about selling, it’s about creating an experience for the audience.
“It’s a memorable commercial, exactly an experience,” College and Career Coordinator Theresa Davis said. Pointing out how the ad used music, movement, and pop culture.
She compared it to the 1971 “ Hilltop” Coke commercial. “ That was a super big ad that Coca-Cola ran,” David says. The commercial featured a diverse set of people, each holding a Coke bottle and singing in unison the song “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony),” recorded by Hillside Singers and the New Seekers. Like the GAP video, it wasn’t about the product, it was about the feeling it created. “That sticks in my mind because it was definitely emotional, and it also played on your senses, as far as emotions, “ Davis said.
Davis explained that television broadcasting company ABC often featured popular songs in their advertisements. “They would have a song that was popular at the time, and it would set the emotion and the feeling of what they were going to present for the season.” Davis continues, “[The songs] were totally stuck in the atmosphere for a while.”
The same applies to the song “Milkshake” from the GAP’s ad. According to Forbes Magazine, the week before the commercial dropped, the song averaged 75K streams, after the launch, it hit over 200K streams daily. With the song gaining such popularity, on TikTok, over 50k users recreated the dance, using the song and Robbie Blue’s original choreography, mimicking the dance GAP created a viral trend.
By tapping into catchy music and TikTok choreography, they turned a simple ad into a social media wave. This kind of strategy of successful modern marketing now depends on how well it can live beyond the original platform.
The virality isn’t just luck; it’s all strategy. This modern marketing is all about multimedia, which is a part of the whole experience. Using TikTok and Instagram, brands can turn a single ad into dozens of moments that audiences can interact with.
“I looked at Gap’s TikTok account, and there were so many different pieces of content referencing this video,” Oregon State University Marketing and Communication Director Jen Rouse said. “There were behind-the-scenes clips and copycat dances. Instead of that being one piece of content, that was twenty pieces of content.”
Modern marketing strategies have become reliant on user engagement across platforms. “The interesting thing about social media and multimedia is that your audience can also participate in the content in a way that we couldn’t 30 years ago,” Rouse said. “It can just become, reused, copied, and amplified in a way that it couldn’t previously.”
In an interview with Forbes, Oli Walsh, Founder and CEO of brand transformation consultancy Invisible Dynamics, who teamed up with GAP for the Campaign, says, “There’s no such thing as an overnight success: in any person, any brand, any anything… It’s about the compound interest of what you’ve been doing for a while.” Walsh said.
These strategies rely on the audience and how they interact with them. “Brands are keeping people that are more popular in things that aren’t so popular,” Sophie Garland explains that for her, the aspect that caught her attention was the popular group KATSEYE. “You see your favorite celebrity working with a brand, now you want to buy something from that brand,” Garland said.
“Coming from a Hispanic background, in the GAP ad, there are all different races and skin colors,” junior Lizeth Degante said. The KATSEYE group, featured in the ad, reflects this diversity that Degante liked to see. With members from the Philippines, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States, each with different cultural backgrounds. GAP’s message under their ad holds onto that individual identity, stating, “This is denim as you define it. Your individuality. Yourself expression. Your style. Powerful on your own. Even better together.”
It’s not just about showing a product anymore; it’s about creating a moment people want to be part of.
