Posted: October 3, 2011 | Author: spamothemagnificent | Filed under: Business Musings | Tags: Apple Store, JC Penney, JCrew, Liberty of London, Michael Francis, Michael Graves, Mickey Drexler, Missoni, Ron Johnson |
Addendum – August 1, 2012: The original post was written in October, 2011, and given the passage of time and JCP’s financial performance since then, it is clearly dated. I still think the Johnson/Francis team could have done great things – problem is they rolled out the re-branding in a big, splashy way before they could bring the product and stores up to the standards of the so-called new and improved JCP experience. So yes, I have a bit of egg on my face. But it just goes to show you – the best plans in the world ain’t worth the paper they’re written on if you don’t execute.
Original Post: If you follow such things, no doubt you’ve heard that Ron Johnson of Apple Retail Stores and Genius Bar fame and, IMO, one of the few true merchants out there (as I’ve discussed before, Mickey Drexler of JCrew is pretty much the only other one) is set to become the new CEO of JC Penney come November 1st. What you may not know is that Johnson spent his formative merchant years at Target – 15 years, to be exact, before the 11 he spent at Apple. Word is that he was a bit of a maverick at Target, which is not really in keeping with their corporate culture but probably served him well at Apple. Today, Target announced that its CMO, Michael Francis, is leaving the company after a decade to join…(wait for it)…JC Penney as its new president. Francis is the creative brains behind Target’s brand positioning and its best known ad campaigns, including the recent Missoni launch. Interestingly, high profile design deals like Missoni, as well as Liberty of London, Michael Graves and others (full disclosure: I was CEO of Swell, one of Target’s “design partners”) don’t live on the merchant side of Target’s business; rather, they reside within marketing, which was in Francis’ purview.
Have you ever been to a JC Penney? I have – once. It was for research. I very nearly died of boredom. Can you recall a single JC Penney ad or product deal or anything interesting they have ever done? Anything they do particularly well? Anything that distinguishes them from any other retail chain? Me neither. I think that’s about to change.
Posted: September 15, 2011 | Author: spamothemagnificent | Filed under: Business Musings | Tags: Apple Retail Stores, Fab.com, Forbes, Genius Bar, JC Penney, JCrew, Mickey Drexler, Ron Johnson, The Gap |
You may already be familiar with the flash sale site Fab.com that launched over the summer. It rocks in a big way. If your style vibe is retro/vintage inspired/whimsical/arty/don’t take yourself too seriously, it’s for you. If it’s not, it’s worth checking out anyway. You may find the options a bit hit or miss on any given day (the site typically features @ six or so new designers/artisans/product collections daily), but I promise you’ll find at least one must-have item in the course of a week. And since the price points range from as little as $5.00 to as much as several thousand, there really is something for everyone – well, everyone who shares the above described esthetic.
And that really is the point – there is an incredibly strong product vision at work here, which tends to be missing in most other flash sale sites. In the old days, this used to be called merchandising – picking the right product, combining it with the right product assortment so as to tell a compelling story, offering it at the right price point and displaying it in an appealing manner to a prospective customer that is likely to be receptive to it and want to buy it. There are sadly almost no real merchants left anymore – there’s Mickey Drexler, who ran The Gap during its heyday in the 90s and more recently reinvented JCrew; Ron Johnson, the genius behind the Genius Bar and Apple Retail Stores, who is leaving shortly for JC Penney (I have no idea why); and no one else I can think of. The Fab folks have restored my faith that some people understand there is more to building a successful retail business than a laser focus on reducing the number of shopping carts that are started and abandoned or maximizing the revenue per square foot – it requires a little art and a little magic. And that, my friends, is called merchandising. Not curation (which word should go the way of “synergy” unless used in reference to a museum or gallery exhibit), but merchandising.
Forbes has a nice piece on the company here. Site is by membership only, BUT they’re running a deal now – if you use the link http://fab.com/wfente you’ll get a $10 free credit when you join. The deal expires at 3:28pm ET on Friday, 9/16/11, so go to it. It pays to know Spamothemag…
Posted: September 6, 2011 | Author: spamothemagnificent | Filed under: Business Musings, Personal Musings | Tags: Ad Age, Freddie Mercury, Google, JC Penney, Macy's, Minneapolis, Missoni, Peterson Milla Hooks, Target, Wal-Mart |
Greetings and salutations…
It’s been a crazy long time since I posted. I won’t go into the details, mostly because they’re not very interesting. I did, however, have an epiphany of sorts, courtesy of my friend Jason, that every post doesn’t need to be a treatise requiring a full day of writing, editing and re-editing. Rather, I can offer up some interesting (at least to me, and hopefully to you) tidbits several times throughout the day and week, and maybe do some serious pontificating once a week or so. Thank you, Jason, for liberating me from my compulsive editing – I’m going to give it a try because while some people need an outlet for their creativity, I need one for my opinions.
Since this a back to school/work/real life day for just about everyone, I thought I’d ease us all back in with a toast of sorts to one person and one ad agency with two important things in common – they not only entertained us enormously over the years, but they also succeeded (judging by the volume of me-too’s, wannabe’s and copy cats they collectively generated) in altering the pop culture landscape. The first is Freddie Mercury, who would have turned 65 yesterday and is the subject of today’s excellent Google doodle (although I think I would have chosen Killer Queen). The second is Minneapolis-based agency Petersen Milla Hooks, which is best known for the iconic work they did for Target. While client and agency parted ways this past spring (and the chain’s advertising has suffered significantly for it, IMHO), the last campaign they did together – for Target’s Missoni line, which debuts later this month – is vintage PMH and the kind of advertising that so successfully set Target apart from their competitors. (Think Missoni would ever do a line for Wal-Mart? JC Penney? Hell, I bet they wouldn’t even do one for Macy’s.) So what better time to take a look back, courtesy of Ad Age, at some of the great work they’ve done together.
PS: 2 points to whoever identifies the musical reference in the title – band AND CD.
spamothemagnificent 