JC Penney creates a truly clueless breast cancer awareness ad

What is this, even? Fumbled CSR? Trivialization of cancer? Terrible brand pun? Photoshop Disaster?

It's all that, and more.

Digiday's Joanna Franchini writes:

Someone please save JCPenney from itself: the company’s latest ad campaign, rolled out in October for Breast Cancer Awareness month, is a painful mess of mixed brand messaging, inadvertent sexism and cultural tone-deafness. 
...
The long hierarchy of people who approved this ad believed it was cool or clever to conflate pennies and breasts, making light of the nightmares of breast screening, lumpectomy, mastectomy and breast reconstruction. Very uncool and way, way out of touch.

While JC Penney is taking PR lumps over this ad (which appeared in People magazine), I feel really bad for the woman featured. She's trying to do something good for a cause that is really close to her (far too close!) and now she suffers embarrassment at the hands of bad advertisers.

JC Penney: Accidental Bully?

It's one of those dumb ads that uses a stereotype about the need to fit in at school. But how times have changed!



This back-to-school ad has ignited an emotional debate on social media. On the one side, we have parents outraged that, by joking about the exclusion of kids with uncool clothes, JC Penney is promoting bullying or classism:

Via Facebook

On the other side are people complaining about how sensitive we have all become:

Via YouTube

What do you think? I'm not personally offended by the ad, but I can also see why (in this economy) it struck a nerve in some parents. As you can see above, the company is responding to complaints with a PR blurb that is pretty noncommittal, however they acknowledge they have discontinued the ad anyway.

Perhaps the real lesson here is for creatives: Come up with some new damn ideas, rather than rehashing clichés you remember from your youth. And for marketers: Oversensitive or not, this is the new reality of democratic communication. Deal with it honestly and with empathy.

Ellen DeGeneres, 1; One Million Moms, 0

From One Million Moms:

Recently JC Penney announced that comedian Ellen Degeneres will be the company's new spokesperson. Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful. 

Their marketing strategy is to help families shop and receive a good value for their money. Degeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there. The small percentage of customers they are attempting to satisfy will not offset their loss in sales.
JC Penney has made a poor decision and must correct their mistake fast to retain loyal customers and not turn away potential new, conservative shoppers with the company's new vision. 

"Importantly, we share the same fundamental values as Ellen," said Michael Francis, president of J.C. Penney Company in a press statement. "At JC Penney, we couldn't think of a better partner to help us put the fun back into the retail experience. Moving forward, we'll be focused on being in sync with the rhythm of our customers' lives and operating in a 'Fair and Square' manner that is rooted in integrity, simplicity and respect. We're thrilled that she's joining our team to help convey the exciting transformation under way." 

"They have an incredible vision for the future and are completely re-inventing themselves to become America's favorite store," said DeGeneres in a press statement.

By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years. 

TAKE ACTION
Make a personal phone call to JC Penney's customer service department. Their numbers are 972-431-8200 (customer service) and 972-431-1000 (corporate headquarters).
Ask JC Penney to replace Ellen Degeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war. 

"Neutral"? Hilarious! Neutrality would mean accepting that sexual orientation has nothing to do with the issue.

But I love the way OMM quote JC Penney and DeGeneres as if we're supposed to be outraged. JC Penney has made an excellent move in striking up a partnership with a celebrity who gay and straight people alike love for her humour and intellect.

According to Reuters:

"DeGeneres' daytime talk show has more viewers than the American Family Association has moms. Between January 16 and January 22, "Ellen" averaged 3.38 million viewers -- or 2.38 million more people than the AFA has moms."

And then she totally owned them with this statement:

Give it up, one million morons. Your relevance has passed.

JC Penney prepares your daughters to be sugar babies

In a product failure reminiscent of the "Math class is tough!" talking Barbie fiasco of almost 20 years ago, JC Penney has discontinued this shirt from its back-to-school girls' line:

In the early '90s, however, outrage spread much more slowly.

Care2 reports that, in this case, consumer reaction was swift and effective:

Tuesday night, Melissa Wardy of Pigtail Pals – Redefine Girly, shared the link to the shirt on her facebook page. Since then, the shirt has been shared across Facebook and Twitter by parents expressing shock at that the department store would be selling a shirt like this. While some people think the shirt is meant to be funny and not taken seriously, others like parenting blogger and advertising industry professional Liz Gumbinner (known as Mom 101), don’t see the humor. On Twitter, Gumbinner wrote: “How is it funny to promote to young girls that what we value in them is their looks, not their brains?”

Sure, it was probably designed by someone with innocent intentions of being cutesy with the whole "princess" tween culture. But the gaffe is still a shot against gender equality.

If such statements were simply foolishness, I guess it would be easy to let this one go. But attractive people (of both genders) really do have an easier time achieving success. It's just human nature. But it hardly needs to be hammered home to girls 7-16, who have already learned that their society values their cuteness and/or sexiness above academic achievement and independent thought.

The other scary thing about this is that there are women, just a few years older than this shirt's target market, who are putting its worldview into practice. Sugar Daddy "dating" sites and apps encourage attractive young women 18+ (especially cash-strapped students) to accept payment and gifts from older men in exchange for "company".

I guess they won't have to do their homework either.