• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, September 10, 2024

Old Navy is turning 30, and the retailer is celebrating with a new brand identity, a new campaign, and a greatest-hits capsule collection paying tribute to ‘90s classics. Those include baby tees, baggy jeans, cargos, matching tracksuits and bucket hats, and an introduction at New York Fashion Week. But there are much bigger changes in the works. Behnaz Ghahramani, who joined the company as chief marketing officer a year ago, tells Marketing Daily about the new brand mission, evolving identity and a revised understanding of what value means to style-conscious shoppers.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marketing Daily: While it’s been a rough few years for both Old Navy and the Gap, your parent company, things are turning around. What has that been like?

Behnaz Ghahramani: In the last year, we have focused on our financial and operational rigor. We've had four consecutive quarters of positive comparable sales and are making sure the business is financially sound.

I've also been focusing on brand reinvigoration. We have a new visual identity, which is a subtle evolution of the brand. As we move into our 30th anniversary year, we want to reassert our place in the culture. For us, it's been about both relevance and revenue. We are really excited about introducing the new brand playbook. That’s what this capsule collection is about—reminding everyone why they know us and love us.

Marketing Daily: Talk about consumer finances. Things have been tight, and that’s caused many people to cut back on apparel. Old Navy has always been a value brand. What do you see in terms of value perception?

Ghahramani: The value proposition is central to our positioning as a brand. We don’t only offer a great price; we offer great value. That’s about fit, quality and experience, as well as price. We’ve always been about great fashion at great value, and those incredible price points are part of why people love us.

Marketing Daily:  Tell us about this ’94 Reissue collection, led by Zac Posen, chief creative officer. The campaign is going to run on digital media and social, and there’s even a ‘90s-inspired zine, online and in print. Please explain how people can be so nostalgic for fashion that peaked before they were born?

Ghahramani: We call it “nowstalgia.” We got the ideas from our fandom, and watching what was going viral on TikTok. There was this great quote that came out over the holidays from comedian Simon Holland: “Remember that Christmas in the '90s when everyone just gave each other polar fleece from Old Navy, and it was the happiest we have ever been?”

That’s what the ‘90s represent: a moment of so much optimism. It was the beginning of the internet, and there was so much more connection and connectivity between people. Gen Z is craving those times, as well as a low-fi, low-tech era. We definitely saw a resurgence of these trends with our customer base.

What this collection and this campaign does is connect us to our former customers, who have shopped us and loved us over the years, the millennials, but we're also connecting to Gen Z, who may not have been around.

This speaks to our cultural relevance, and that what’s old is new again. These are timeless classics, and they also fit in with our new brand purpose: We invite everyone to come and play with style.

Marketing Daily: Why does that matter?

Ghahramani: It’s an important part of the work that I’ve done over the last year. We’re redefining the purpose, redefining the visual identity, modernizing it to connect with consumers today, to culture today. It’s an incredible opportunity. This brand has such rich heritage, and we’re bringing that to life for new customers. We’re trying to do marketing differently than another mass retailer might do it. For example, we’ve got an experiential event this week with New York Fashion Week, working with The Cut. It’s a great way for new people to experience and play with the brand.

Marketing Daily: Before Old Navy, you worked at Ralph Lauren, Stuart Weitzman and Gucci. What surprised you most, moving from luxury to a value brand?

Ghahramani: What was so exciting for me is that this brand is known to so many people. It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t shopped at Old Navy. So those elements of connection, community and cultural relevance really change the way we can tell stories.

Marketing Daily: I’m sure you hope the collection will sell out. What other ways are you tracking the success of this?

Ghahramani: It’s really about brand love. Everything we’ve been doing at Old Navy is a subtle evolution, with every step that we’ve taken. It's not something that is like turning on the lights in the store, and all of a sudden, it's a completely different brand. There's such rich heritage and iconography, and we’ve just been modernizing that.

Success, then, isn't just how many people we reach or how many new customers we acquire, even though those are important metrics. It’s about love for this brand. We’re hoping customers will start thinking of us, noticing us and loving the work we're doing. We want them to love the product and the experience that they have in the stores. And we want every step, every brand touch point, working in unison, in ways that bring this new purpose to life.

In six months, I hope that people will be wearing our clothes and when someone asks where they got it, they’ll proudly say “Old Navy.”