This Omni Talk Retail Fast Five segment, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, Quorso, and Veloq, explores Gap Inc’s launch of Encore, a unified loyalty program across Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta.

Chris and Anne debate whether loyalty consolidation can drive cross shopping and growth for the portfolio.

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Gap Inc. Has launched Encore, a new cross brand loyalty program spanning Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta.

Building on a house file of nearly 40 million active members, Encore introduces three tiers.

Core, Premier and All Access.

Always love it's three tiers.

It's never like seven tiers or 13 tiers.

It's always three.

That's just your, that's the business school motto, right?

You always have to break things out into three.

It's probably coming from someone, one of your peers at your business school.

Yeah, it's a consultant thing.

You give them two options that are good and one that's horrible.

So that's kind of what they're doing here, probably most likely.

But anyway, they're introducing three tiers with the updated earning thresholds, extended returns, birthday bonuses and new Encore Master.

And a new Encore MasterCard that earns four five times points at Gap Brands and three times on eligible apparel purchases elsewhere.

The program leans heavily into experiential rewards as well, which means exclusive fashion drops, early access to product launches and entertainment experiences.

And all four brands share a single points bank, giving Gap a unified cross brand view of consumer and customer spend.

And what do you think of Gap's Encore launch?

Is this the loyalty play that finally gives the brand portfolio a genuine growth engine or is it just glossed up loyalty points?

I, I don't know that we will.

I don't know yet.

That's the question.

I do love this.

As a loyal Gap customer, I do love this.

For the points consolidation, it never made sense to me that there were three different credit cards and three different loyalty programs.

You had Gap cash that you could use at some, but you couldn't.

You're all, you're all feeding into one larger Gap Inc.

So number one, I think that, you know, while it's just a loyalty program for now, my hope is that this means consolidation in other areas of the store and just making it one unified brand that I can shop.

And the credit card is another good example, like having one credit card that you can use across brands and gain five times more points.

Because those points really do add up and I've been using them for a long time, so I'm really excited to see them all come together.

I also think Think that it could encourage some crossover in.

Maybe I'm an Athleta shopper, but I've never shopped at Old Navy.

But now I have these points that I can use across all the labels.

It might prompt me to go into a store that I maybe haven't been to in a while, like an Old Navy or like a Gap.

So I think, you know, all boats rise, right?

If, if customers are keeping their money in the family, they're, they're driven to try another Gap banner instead of going to another store.

I think this could lead to probably some slower but some positive growth for, for Gap Inc. And that's on the loyalty part, the fashion tainment component.

I'm still kind of pausing on that one.

I'm going to reserve judgment until I see what really happens with the new ex Paramount woman leading that up.

So we'll see.

I'm going to reserve judgment on that.

But for now, I really like the combined loyalty program part of this.

But how about you?

Yeah, I think that's a great.

I think those are great points.

I mean, I think, you know, at the end of this is just good smart retailing, you know, and I think back to having worked at the brand, too, I thought, you know, I never thought about this until you just mentioned it.

You know, I think, you know, if you look at Gap 20 years ago, there was, there was a good cohesion across all those brands.

Like, I felt like people knew that the same company was running all of them.

And I feel like that's kind of died off a little bit.

And to your point, it is a very frustrating experience to have to use different credit cards at all the different brands.

And, and why is that?

So if that's what they're going for here, I think it's, it's a big win and it potentially does get me cross shopping more and makes it easier for me, too, and makes me more.

Have more affinity to the brand.

But I'm with you.

Like, I, I'm not buying into the entertainment connection just quite yet.

I think there's a lot more proof that needs to be put into that pudding, so to speak, because that's just something that's really hard to scale.

It's really hard to make it impactful to a large degree to a large number of consumers.

You, you've got to really figure out the marketing side of that.

I'm hesitant on that, but I think it just seems like a good, smart move.