Drums and cheering could be heard throughout Manhattan this past weekend as the Gap Cheer Squad and Drumline rocked their way from Harlem to the South Street Seaport to Battery Park and beyond. New York was the first stop on a tour that aims to encourage people to have fun and make this year’s festivities extra special and memorable. The A Squared Group team embraced this project as a great opportunity for the Cheer Factory idea, made famous in numerous Gap ads this holiday season, to hit the streets and reach consumers in a personalized, spontaneous and incredibly exciting way.

Traveling via a dramatically branded bus from point to point, the Cheer Squad and Drumline surprised crowds of lucky pedestrians along their route.

The show they put on – complete with fun and clever cheers, boundless energy and death-defying tricks – entranced everyone within sight and hearing. Surprise gifts were given to unsuspecting pedestrians lucky enough to catch the show.

The A Squared Group team loved watching people’s reactions as Cheer Squad members fearlessly flew into the air.

The festive, communal spirit was tangible.

If you are in Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco in the coming weeks, keep your eyes and ears open. The Gap Cheer Squad and Drumline are coming your way.

As always, the White Space provided us a perfect blank canvas with which to play.

The Merci boutique may be unfamiliar to those who haven’t ventured to France within the past six months and au courante on all international fashion and design trends. That makes it even more exciting for us to be able to help introduce Merci in the United States. It is an eclectic mix of haute discoveries, vintage pieces and a melange of items in between. It is a vibrant, unpretentious shop with an artistic vibe – a great match with Gap’s aesthetic.

We captured that spirit, with all its whimsy and great attention to detail, to produce a memorable experience for visitors to the Gap Concept Store.

Consumers who enter the Merci Gap shop would never guess that only days before Anna Wintour and the denizens of New York’s Fashion Week celebrated its opening, a denim-themed story highlighting Gap’s Born to Fit campaign lived in the space. Or that, just weeks earlier, we had built a yoga studio environment and brought in yoga gurus to teach classes. As with those that came before, the Merci experience was fleeting. We are already at work to transform the Gap Concept Store into a new incarnation. Stop by 54th and 5th when next you’re in the city, to see the latest developments.

Gap, Inc. has been known for its denim since the company’s inception in 1969. In the past few years, however, a new wave of “premium denim” has taken the fashion world by storm. Gap sees an opportunity to compete with the Rock & Republics and True Religions with its newly redesigned 1969 Premium Denim, but needs to shatter consumer assumptions that a) premium denim needs to cost a premium, and b) Gap isn’t premium. A Squared Group has stepped in to address the challenge.

The 1969 Pop-Up is designed to generate a visitor experience for consumers that transports them into the world of high-end fashion while highlighting the core principles of simplicity, quality and straight-forwardness for which Gap is known. The keys to the 1969 Pop-Up’s success, and to the success of any pop-up, are location, decor, clarity of branding and inspired dashes of fun and surprise. With these elements in place, the consumer experience can be magical.

We built 1969 on Robertson Blvd., directly across from The Ivy. This is a high-end fashion nexus and center for celebrity fashionistas. It is the “must shop” strip of boutiques for anyone seeking premium clothes.

We created a striking, clean and simple space. It is all about the denim. Gap branding has been kept to a minimum; initial consumer impressions are based solely on the product. Visitors to the store are drawn in by the decor’s subtlety, embrace the premium denim ambiance, interact with the quality product, and feel they’ve uncovered a secret when they discover that their new favorite fashion finds are Gap. The visitor experience is utterly unique.

Consumers have flocked to 1969. The buzz is fantastic. And sales are phenomenal. It has been such a success, in fact, that Gap, Inc. and A Squared Group are looking into ways to extend the experience.

1969 has most definitely popped!

The NYSE is known as a high-pressured environment where a traditional, conservative uniform is maintained. Traders at one time even wore bowler hats on the floor. The 40th Anniversary of Gap, Inc., however, is a significant achievement and needs to be celebrated in a big way. It is an iconic brand. While simultaneously holding celebratory events at select stores throughout the country, A Squared Group has been in New York for more than a week to ensure that every single trader can honor the company’s success and relevance in the marketplace by wearing the new Gap 1969 Premium Jeans collection.

The traders couldn’t be happier to oblige.

In addition to turning the floor of the NYSE into a sea of denim, Gap’s North American President, Marka Hansen, along with select members of the founding Fisher family, will remotely ring the Closing Bell for the company headquarters in San Francisco. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Anyone walking by the Gap Concept Store is immediately struck by the juxtaposition of what is happening inside to what is happening out on the street. The space provides an oasis from the hustle and bustle of everyday New York life.

During the first few weeks of July, for example, the space became Gap’s Pure Body Studio. The new Gap Pure Body line of layering essentials adorned the walls, in soothing colors. New Yorkers were invited in – to escape from the chaos of daily life, to acquaint themselves with the super-soft new clothes, to quench their thirst with refreshing flavored water, and to simply pause for a moment of fun exploration. They were also encouraged to sign up for free yoga classes – to be held in the space and to be lead by top yoga gurus Ashley Turner and Sadie Nardini, respectively.

On two consecutive Saturdays, lucky yoga class participants were able to relax in a bubble of calm, and improve their Downward Dogs under the gentle guidance of experts, while the rest of New York frantically raced by outside. Additionally, they gained free Harmony yoga mats and blissed-out smiles.

By all accounts, it was an amazing experience for beginners and pros alike.

Prior to hosting the Gap Pure Body Studio, the Gap Concept Store housed inspired designs by CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Finalists Alexander Wang, Albertus Swanepoel and Vena Cava’s Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai. This year’s finalists were challenged to rework Gap’s iconic khaki fabric. Their achievements, along with captured quotes conveying their thoughts about fashion, resulted in a crisp, monochromatic look and adventurous vibe.

If you walk by the Concept Store today, however, you may think it is an art gallery. Actually, you would be correct. A collection of artwork, created to inspire Gap’s new limited edition series of Artist Inspired T-Shirts in support of (PRODUCT) RED, is now on display. Consumers have the opportunity to view over 20 original pieces, from 10 established and up-and-coming artists, in the laidback environment of the Concept Store. Within the same heartbeat, consumers can see the artists’ visions captured on soft Gap T-shirts, which they can touch, feel and own. Fifty percent of profits will be donated to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS in Africa.

Each installation is fun, hip and interactive. It catches consumers by surprise and stirs their imagination.

But it is never around for long! So, have a look while you can.

We’re just days away from reimagining the Gap Concept Store once again. I won’t tell you yet what the next incarnation will be, but you can check out previous ones here and here. Just know that, for mere hours, the Concept Store will revert to being a blank, White Space. Then, it will morph into yet another awesome, new experience for New Yorkers, and anyone else who happens to visit.

January is all about color in the white space! To bring shoppers some warmth and optimism during the cold dreary days of winter, Gap teamed up with PANTONE to feature an array of t-shirts in 25 trendy colors.  The store also features a limited edition t-shirt in Mimosa, PANTONE’s color of the year for 2009.  It’s only available in the White Space and until supplies last.  A Squared Group was on the ground last week converting the blank space into a virtual painter’s palette of bright, bold colors.  The results are warm, modern and clean, just the thing to make you forget that it’s 20 degrees outside!

Is your child the next face of babyGap and GapKids? Gap’s annual Casting Call contest gets off the ground today online at www.gap.com/castingcall. This year, A Squared Group is helping Gap take the ever-popular competition to the next level. Over the course of the casting call, A2G will be visiting over 40 babyGap and GapKids stores to offer free children’s photography to aspiring kid models. We will be setting up a mini-photo studio in stores, giving the up-and-comers a chance to pose their way into the next Gap ad campaign.

Using special camera technology, the casting call team will photograph each child and give them their own coded card. Families will be able to go home, log onto the casting call site and see their photos. They are then free to use their “Gap Ad” shots to enter the competition! For a list of participating store locations visit here.

What inspires you?

Gap wants to know what people are inspired by this election year, so A Squared Group is hitting the road to find out. During September, we’re traveling to over 15 Gap stores across the country to customize blank Vote For ______ T-shirts to get a feeling for what Gap customers are passionate about. The best of the T-shirts will be chosen for display in Gap windows during late October.

This is self-expression at it’s best, so anything goes. So far we’ve seen hundreds of T-shirts and no two have been the same. We’ll keep you updated on the best of the best and who makes it to the windows during election time.