Consumer Confidential: Gap logo redux, record Wall Street pay, Wal-Mart does iPad
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Here’s your treat-me-nice Tuesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:
--I wrote last week about Gap Inc. introducing a new logo that immediately drew scorn online for being a step in the wrong direction. Looks like our friends at Gap got the message. The company has abandoned its new-and-not-so-improved logo, and will return instead to its traditional, iconic blue box. The new logo had changed the type face and moved the blue box to the side -- changes that some said made it look like a logo for a phone company. ‘We’ve learned a lot in this process,’ said Marka Hansen, Gap brand president in North America. ‘We are clear that we did not go about this in the right way.’ You think?
--Wall Street’s underpaid denizens are on track for record paydays this year, according to a survey by the Wall Street Journal. Leading financial firms will pay $144 billion in compensation and benefits this year, a 4% increase from the $139 billion paid out in 2009. This follows separate news that many Wall Streeters are expecting big jumps in bonuses this year. Is it just me, or is it now painfully clear that the financial world learned nothing from its all-too-recent brush with disaster? Not a very encouraging thought.
--Because Apple just doesn’t get enough free press, here’s the latest update: Wal-Mart will begin selling the uber-popular iPad on Friday, and the gizmo should be available at nearly all outlets by mid-November. This follows a move by Target to include the iPad in its product lineup, as well as a decision by Apple to make the iPad more readily available to iPad-deficient consumers. But don’t go thinking that just because Wal-Mart is involved, prices will come down. The world’s largest retailer will sell the iPad at Apple’s suggested retail prices -- $499 to $829, depending on the model.
-- David Lazarus
