[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_video admin_label=”Video” src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/e4wReHjL0u8″ \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
PRESS PLAY>> TO VIEW KEN\u2019S WELCOME MESSAGE FROM FRANCE.<\/p>\n
With the ongoing poor results reported by JC Penney over the past several months, it came as no surprise to me as I arrived in France a couple weeks ago to learn that he had been fired.\u00a0 No matter how good your resume is, non-stop double-digit declines in revenues and profits\u2014and the resultant plummeting of the stock price\u2014Johnson couldn\u2019t expect to survive the uproar from the board, Wall Street and long-time customers.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about the branding makeover at JCP a couple times this past year, but I felt it necessary to give one more opinion on why the guy who was so successful at Apple just couldn\u2019t make it happen at a conventional department store.<\/p>\n
First, let\u2019s look at what Johnson had at Apple.\u00a0 First, Apple is a brand that was truly differentiated from the competition.\u00a0 Cutting-edge design.\u00a0 Breakthrough technology.\u00a0 Futuristic apps and products.\u00a0 These were all in place before he was so successful at Apple.\u00a0 Taking the brand principles that were in place and applying them (very well I must admit) to the retail operations for Apple truly set the stores up as a model for a consumer centric experience and one where the people, the design and the operations lived up to the brand promise everyday.<\/p>\n
Second, Johnson had a strong, brand evangelist as a leader in Steve Jobs.\u00a0\u00a0 While he was demanding and relentless, Jobs set a standard that people half as smart as Johnson would have succeeded by following.\u00a0 No such leadership existed at JCP.\u00a0 Johnson\u2019s predecessors were traditional department store veterans who chose more to emulate and copy stores like Kohl\u2019s and Macy\u2019s and really never stood out as anything special.\u00a0 Business was built on ongoing promotions and awareness and while that generated volume, it didn\u2019t develop a hallmark brand that the board wanted when it hired the new regime last year.<\/p>\n
Third, JCP had built its growth in recent years on these promotions and coupons but failed to develop a loyalty to the stores and the people that quickly evaporated as soon as Johnson\u2019s team adopted a new, everyday (somewhat) low price strategy.\u00a0 As I have written in this blog before, the mistake was to go to the extreme.\u00a0 JCP should have maintained a consistent (reduced) promotional plan to maintain it\u2019s loyal sale shoppers while it developed the look and messaging that would have differentiated it from the other department stores.<\/p>\n
Apple didn\u2019t have to have sales because it built its brand on the products and the service that were so far above the competition.\u00a0 JCP had to gradually climb out of the hole it had dug for itself over the years with me-too advertising.<\/p>\n
Ron Johnson, Michael Francis and the others in this new regime didn\u2019t suddenly get dumb when they got to Plano.\u00a0 No they just tried to apply the principles of a strong brand to one that needed a lot more repair than they bargained for.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_video admin_label=”Video” src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/e4wReHjL0u8″ \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] PRESS PLAY>> TO VIEW KEN\u2019S WELCOME MESSAGE FROM FRANCE. With the ongoing poor results reported by JC Penney over the past several months, it came as no surprise to me as I arrived in France a couple weeks ago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}