I have been loving the new JCPenny advertising. Ellen DeGeneres. Hip. Cool. Fresh.
Fair and square.
The television works and looks great. Ellen is so fun.
Then a JCP mini-catalogue was delivered to our house. You need to understand that my wife is a graphic artist. She doesn't like much of anything that anyone else does. And she thinks the new JCP stuff is fabulous. Great lay-out. Great attitude. Great positioning.
JCPenny's advertising has been doing a great job.
But that's where it stops. I visited a JCPenny's store at the local mall this weekend.
I was walking through the store thinking that if I hadn't seen the sign outside of the store, I wouldn't know what store I was in. There was no feeling of "hip" any where in the place. There was no help. There were long lines at the cash registers, which was a surprise because there weren't that many people in the store. The place was a typical, nameless, brandless, cut-rate department store that still managed to get $100 from my wallet even though I wasn't impressed, appreciated, or particularly well-served.
When Target branded themselves with all that advertising that was so cool, the stores changed the way they looked, the products they carried, and the way the employees were trained and the way they treated the rest of us. If you were blind-folded and dropped into a Target, you would know exactly where you were once the blind-fold was taken off.
Penny's... that's not really the case.
Branding must equal advertising, must equal product, must equal service, must equal customer experience, must equal so, so, so much more. Penny's has not convinced me that they know what they have to do.
Great advertising. Poor, poor, poor branding. One does not equal the other.
Fair and square.
The television works and looks great. Ellen is so fun.
Then a JCP mini-catalogue was delivered to our house. You need to understand that my wife is a graphic artist. She doesn't like much of anything that anyone else does. And she thinks the new JCP stuff is fabulous. Great lay-out. Great attitude. Great positioning.
JCPenny's advertising has been doing a great job.
But that's where it stops. I visited a JCPenny's store at the local mall this weekend.
I was walking through the store thinking that if I hadn't seen the sign outside of the store, I wouldn't know what store I was in. There was no feeling of "hip" any where in the place. There was no help. There were long lines at the cash registers, which was a surprise because there weren't that many people in the store. The place was a typical, nameless, brandless, cut-rate department store that still managed to get $100 from my wallet even though I wasn't impressed, appreciated, or particularly well-served.
When Target branded themselves with all that advertising that was so cool, the stores changed the way they looked, the products they carried, and the way the employees were trained and the way they treated the rest of us. If you were blind-folded and dropped into a Target, you would know exactly where you were once the blind-fold was taken off.
Penny's... that's not really the case.
Branding must equal advertising, must equal product, must equal service, must equal customer experience, must equal so, so, so much more. Penny's has not convinced me that they know what they have to do.
Great advertising. Poor, poor, poor branding. One does not equal the other.
