Earlier this year, Sears Holding announced a number of store closings and a business writer at my local Louisville Courier-Journal called to ask me for any insights.
I said I wondered how many of those closings would involve Kmart stores, and she said, “Kmart? Are they still in business?”
Ouch! But I wonder how many people had a similar reaction recently when JCPenney announced a number of new policy changes.
Industry insiders know all about Ron Johnson’s move from Apple to Penney, and all the Apple innovations the big department store giant might be expected to emulate. But the average shopper-on-the-street does not get updates on retail organizations’ management shakeups and store overhauls. All she knows is what’s directly in front of her face. And though Penney still has 1100 stores around the country, many of them might as well be invisible.
I was in one of Louisville’s two premium malls last week, a typical 1980s-type space filled with all those familiar retail banners – Claire’s, American Eagle, Coldwater Creek and a Cinnabon – and three anchors: Macy’s, Dillard’s and JCPenney. As I made my way through the mall, an overhead sign directed me to Penney’s and the food court, and my initial reaction was, “Penney’s? Are they in this mall?”
How much of an afterthought has this great old retail name become for millions of other mall shoppers – those who didn’t fall to their knees and genuflect when Ron Johnson was hired.
And then, last Sunday, my wife put something on my desk: a newspaper insert. It was glossy and mostly white, showed a pair of a woman’s legs wearing colorful pumps and a red handbag dangling from an unseen hand. In the lower right-hand corner: “fickle february.” In the upper left-hand corner: “jcp.”
And my wife said to me: “This grabs my attention.”
There are a lot of retail inserts packed into a typical Sunday newspaper. Imagine what it requires to grab someone’s attention like this.
Inside, the circular was mostly white backgrounds with lots of bright color, fun images, sparse copy. Kind of a nice, bright look and feel on a cold February morning.
And, by the way, lots of people were also reacting to Penney’s new “no-o-o-o-o-o!” ad campaign on television. They may have wondered, “What’s this all about?” But they were noticing, and wondering, which is what you want from a TV ad.
So good first step, Ron Johnson and JCPenney. But retail success is, unfortunately, similar to Mao’s Long March. And this is just the first of five million steps.