J.C. Penney Takes Aim At Off-Price, But Should It Have? | Fast Five Shorts

JcPenney's launched a new retail rejuvenation marketing campaign aimed squarely at off price retailers, arguing its apparel and home goods are more fashionable and in better condition than what shoppers find at discounters like tgx, Ross and Burlington.

According to Retail Dive.

In the campaign, dubbed a journey from quote retail regret to retail redemption, end quote, Penneys touts its apparel as more fashionable and its homegoods as in better shape than what can be found at its discount rivals from August 28th through August 30th.

Yes, this weekend everybody, those shoppers who regret a purchase made elsewhere can drop their items off at a JC Penney store and get $15 off a $50 purchase.

The campaign includes a tongue in cheek spot featuring six people apparently hooked on off price shopping, with a retreat facilitator working to break the spell those stores have on them and before getting them to chant cult like in favor of pennies instead.

It's a great commercial.

I got to give them props on that one.

Joe.

JCPenney is essentially telling shoppers that off price treasure hunting is a mistake.

Is attacking a category that's been taking your market shares for years a smart offensive move?

Or is it, is it in and of itself also a mistake?

I go both ways on this one, which is probably not the right, the right answer.

But I think, I think on the one hand JCPenney has been so on the back foot for such a long time, it's nice to see them being punch about anything.

And, and you know, I think an aggressive targeted campaign against or contro one of the places that the JCPenney shopper is shopping these days.

Why not?

Like, you might as well give it, give it a try.

To your point, it's a really funny ad.

It catches the attention.

It probably makes some people who had not been to a JCPenney in the wild go, oh yeah, there's some, there's some points about the downsides of the treasure hunt approach that, that you know, maybe I should give them another try.

Like do I do I think JCPenney could pick on kind of other, other categories that have taken traffic away from it.

Sure.

Absolutely.

But, but again it's, it's better than, it's better than the silence that, that has been JCPenney's main, main marketing strategy up up until now.

So I, I give them credit for something that's likely to get some attention on social and, and it's, it's kind of funny and, and you know how effective it's going to be as far as driving JCPenney sales, we'll, we'll kind of have to wait and see on that, but at least it's getting some attention and social buzz has been good about it.

Yeah, that's funny, Joe.

It makes me think like as I project five to 10 years out, like if I get to see a commercial down the road of like why are you shopping on Amazon from their fully automated warehouse where like the robots are picking everything and packing everything and when you could be coming into our store and interacting with a human being, you know, it makes me start to wonder if that's the direction we're going to go.

But I don't know.

I'm kind of conflicted too.

I think on the whole though, I'm a little, I'm a little more on the downside of this promotion.

There's a few things that worry me.

Like number one, I think J.C. penney's has no idea what the redemption is going to be on this.

It's a pretty compelling offer and it could be quite high.

You could get a lot of folks bringing items in and so one that's going to be hard to comp again against next year.

And then you also have no idea what products are coming back to you.

So it sounds like hell on earth if you're working in the stores this weekend.

So I, I, I salute you JCPenney store workers because I would not want to have this coming down, down, down the pike for me this weekend.

I, I sure hope there's a fine print about just, just what they'll take back and what condition it has to be in because yeah, I could see a bunch of people finding like something that costs $2 and getting $15 in credit for it.

And I mean again, maybe aside from the, to your point, very valid point, like what, what the in store staff is going to have to deal with with all of this stuff.

Getting a whole bunch of people in stores with $15 that may lead to a $30 purchase or a $40 purchase or a 50 DOL.

The numbers may work but, but yeah, the, the logistics of it are sound challenging.

And the other thing too is like if their Dept, if it isn't compelling or their redemptions are bad, I mean then it's like abandoned ship.

I mean like I'm like oh my God, we, we can't get anybody in here with like this type of promotion and we can't get anyone to spend the money that we're giving them.

So like that's going to be a big telltale sign for everyone at JCPenney in terms of like, oh, man, is this going to be a going concern or not?

So.

So it's pretty bold.

Like, it's, it's going to set the course one way or the other.

Yeah.

The other thing I just don't like.

You're basically telling me I should shop off price with this commercial.

That's basically what you're telling me.

You're telling.

You're telling.

You're putting that in my mind, which I probably never actually thought about.

Like, you know, overtly, like, oh, I shouldn't go to J.C. penney's because I can get great deals at off price.

Why don't I just do that?

So.

So for me, I don't know.

As we're talking about this more, Joe, I feel like at the end of the day we're still pushing water uphill in a big way, but I don't.

You get the last word here.

Yeah, I see your point exactly.

About the challenge of picking on a rival is you also potentially plant the seed in somebody's mind that, oh, I could go shop at the rival instead.

It may actually not be so, so bad.

So again, I still, I give them credit for a campaign that was designed to garner some social media attention and buzz the message I like a lot the execution.

I think you're absolutely right about the challenges that in source app is going to face with the execution of it.

And.

And yeah, at the end of the day, are people actually going to follow through and bring something crappy that they got wherever, like in.

In exchange for 15 bucks?

Depends on what else is going on this weekend.

I guess I don't have any plans, so maybe I will take a trek.

Over to J.C. penney's.