Marketing Discussion: JC Penney

I post online discussion questions for my Principles class from time to time. These students are not marketing professionals but are consumers and interested business students who are learning to think about marketing.  They are amazingly honest, open and often insightful.

Here is the latest topic: JC Penney

Who Shops at JC Penney?


Do any of you shop at JC Penney?  What do you think of when you think about them?  Have you noticed their new ad campaign?

Take a look at their web page:  JC Penney Web Page

Here are a couple of their new TV spots:

JCPenney, Cosabella Amore (2013)


JCPenney Levi's Commercial (2013) (Television Commercial) 

Clearly they are adopting a new branding strategy.  Why do you suppose they made this decision?

Here's a clue: Ad Age Article on JC Penney

What is your conclusion? Will this new strategy work?

This is why I find the study of marketing so interesting!

A day later:

More on JC Penney... John Camey - Mar 1, 2013 11:30 AM ]

When you pay attention the news just keeps coming.

Here is an article from today's WSJ:  For Penney's Boss, Shine Is Off the Apple

Enjoy!

drc

On the Marketing Metrics Scam

Marketing metrics have become hot hot hot of late.  There are many of my marketing brethren who offer for a not insignificant consulting fee to identify for you the absolutely essential metric or metrics that will guarantee marketing success.  Whatever their fee is I will gladly give you advice on metrics for half what they are asking. 

I have been doing a lot of thinking about marketing metrics lately. Those of you who know me will not be surprised at all to learn that I have bought several books on the subject.  Some of these books identify and explain more than 50 separate metrics.  Surely it doesn’t take that many but which ones are the right ones?  My reading and thinking about this question have consumed quite a bit of time. 

My conclusion turns out to be pretty simple.  There isn’t one or a handful of metrics that will solve your business or marketing problems.  Actually, if you are trying to identify the right metric you have more serious problems than you might imagine.  If you have a business or marketing plan then you have defined specific goals.  Once you have defined your goals the appropriate metric is OBVIOUS! 

If your personal goal is to lose weight you would use a scale.

If it is to get into med school or law school you use the MCAT or LSAT.

Likewise you should have goals set for your marketing program: increased profit (ROI), top of mind recall (recall, awareness) you get the idea.

Bottom line:  If you don’t know what metric to use you have not clearly defined your goals.  Don’t hire someone to tell you about metrics.  Hire someone to help you with planning and goal definition.

#justsayin

On Social Media Marketing

I have been thinking about Social Media Marketing (S&M&M's) as a blog commentary for awhile.  As luck would have it, my good friend and colleague Megan (Twitter: @MegWink) just posted a great blog article at meganwinkler.com  that gives really good marketing advice on launching a SM program for your business large or small.  I recommend it highly.  For that matter, you should just add her blog to your follow and read regularly list.  So, my first thought (honestly) was, "Crap! there goes my topic."  Then I realized I didn't want to write a useful article about how to launch SM.  I wanted to rant about it.  So, all is good.  What follows is largely opinion based on experience with pretty much no empirical data to support it but...you know I'm right.

I have been a moderate to heavy user of social media for awhile: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, FourSquare, Klout.   At the most recent ACBSP annual conference I was elected (drafted) to represent the Southwest (Region 6) on a new committee - the Committee on New Media.  To be perfectly honest, I am not really sure what our task is but it has ramped up my thinking about Social Media in general, Social Media Marketing and how they might best be used.

One of the issues I have noted about social media is the emphasis on "monetizing" it.  As I have thought more about this I am slowly evolving to the notion that "Social Media Marketing" might be an oxymoron.  Now I am not suggesting that it doesn't ever work.  In fact, I am  certain that one or more persons someplace at some time have been wildly successful in using it to be successful.  I am just inclined to believe these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Suppose you are at a cocktail party and one of your distant acquaintances - the aggressive insurance agent - is in attendance.  She spends the entire evening circling the room smiling, showing pictures of her kids and engaging every attendee she can corner in a discussion about their broad insurance needs and offering to help them adjust their coverage.  Do you rush over for a visit or avoid her like the plague?  Thought so. Most Social Media platforms are like that party.  We go there to be social not to be assaulted by a salesperson.  If she just discreetly slipped you a card and said "Call me if I can help" you would probably not have found her so annoying and might actually have called.

Social Medial is much the same. I have unfriended or stopped following a number of contacts once I determined their only raison d'être was to sell me something. To sum up, the key word in Social Media is "Social."  Marketing isn't in there.  Social Medial is a great medium for maintaining contact and top of mind recall.  If you are counting on it as the tool to generate sales I suspect you are in for disappointment.  At least you are from me.  

Don't be the agressive insurance agent.

#justsayin

On Crossing the Rubicon

The Die is Cast

What do these have in common?

Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon.

Cortez orders his men to burn their ships.

MacArthur orders an amphibious landing by the marines at Inchon.

Rosa Parks takes a seat in the front of the bus.

When Caesar crossed the Rubicon he committed an act (arguably treason) from which there was no turning back.  He could never say, "It was an accident," “I didn’t mean to do it” or “Just forget about it.” He had passed a point of no return.   Hence the modern meaning of the phrase "Crossing the Rubicon." Each of the above is an example of a bold individual making a conscious decision and taking action from which there was no return.  There are innumerable examples such these throughout history; however, crossing the Rubicon does not mean world history has to be altered. Crossing the Rubicon can simply mean you were willing personally or professionally to be bold.

The consequences are not always known in advance.  Sometimes they are good.  Cortez prevailed in his conquest.  Whether that was for good or evil is still debated.  The landing at Inchon changed the path of the Korean War and Rosa Parks helped advance the civil rights movement in the United States.  Caesar, on the other hand, became dictator of Rome and was assassinated after only a year in power.   All faced potential disaster that could have far reaching impact.

Would Caesar have acted differently if he had known the outcome in advance?  I think not.  Bold individuals make bold decisions and pursue them.  The weak either never cross the Rubicon or try to meekly wade back across when they get to the other side and are weighed down with doubt or adversity.

Some don’t even know where their personal or professional Rubicon is to which I say, “Get a map and get moving.  Cross the Rubicon.  Jacta alea est.”  #justsayin

This has been posted here as well as on drcamey on everything. It should speak to us both personally as well as professionally.

19th Century Tech in the 21st Century?

Take a look at your business card.  Makes you sort of proud doesn’t it?  Why?  Does it do what you want it to do?

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries the practice of presenting calling cards came into vogue.  When a visitor arrived they would present their calling card to the servant who opened the door who in turn would deliver it to the lady of the house.  In the 19^th century this practice was adopted by the business community and evolved into the business card and boy they have evolved!

We all go to conferences or meeting where we exchange cards.  The whole reason we do this is to help the other person remember who we are and hopefully make it EASY for them to send business our way.  In the past we took all these cards back to our office and either put them in a rolodex or some other filing system. Sometimes we just put a rubber band around them, toss them on our desk and forget them. 

Things have changed. Who really uses a rolodex anymore? Increasingly we use some sort of scanning system (I use the WorldCard Mobile iPhone app.) to quickly get the information into a database that is linked between our computer, smart phone, and maybe our iPad.  It has been faddish to create cards that stand out.  Some of them are almost works of art.  They have odd color schemes, shapes, lots of script writing.  Hot Flash:  These cards do not scan well into databases.

Now, look at your card again.  Is it a work of art that may not get scanned or is it designed to make it EASY for that person you gave it to to send business your way?

19th century technology needs to adapt. We are in the 21st century now. #justsayin

Marketers Know Some Stuff - About YOU!

In his book, "Naked Economics," Charles Wheelan relates the following:

"There is an old pre-Cold War story about a Soviet official who visits an American pharmacy.  The brightly lit aisles are lined with thousands of remedies for every problem from bad breath to toe fungus.  'Very impressive,' he says. 'But how can you make sure that every store stocks all of these items?'" 

Clearly the Soviets were unable to understand how and why our capitalist system of satisfying customer needs at a profit works. 

I was reminded of this story (and highly recommend reading the book by the way) this morning as I was reading the Wall Street Journal.  Sarah Nassauer, in an article titled, "A Season (or 13) for Shopping,"  http://on.wsj.com/nBzLbB describes the retail shopping seasons.  While most of us think of the traditional four seasons, retailers have identified anywhere from 13 to 20 seasons.  Her article unfortunately casts these seasons as being designed to get shoppers into the store so the retailer can sell stuff to customers.  While there may be a hint of truth to this I think there is a much bigger truth to draw from this.

The very essence of marketing is embodied in the Marketing Concept which suggests that we will be most successful by identifying and satisfying customers' wants and needs better than the competition, at a profit.  To accomplish this, retailers (and all marketers) invest a great deal in understanding their customers' needs and recognize that these needs vary at different times of the year.  This helps them adjust their merchandising and marketing mix so it differs for each holiday season, each of the four seasons, back to school season, and so on.

We are rarely surprised when we walk into our favorite retailer and find what we are looking for.  The surprise comes on those rare occasions when the DO NOT have what you went for.  How do they get it right so much of the time?

It's because those marketers know some stuff - about you!

An Introduction

I am a professor of marketing, assistant dean and director of assessment in the College of Business at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, OK. I've been wanting to start a blog for some time. I want to write about marketing. The problem is, I want to write about a lot of other things as well. It strikes me that the target markets for what I want to write about is somewhat disparate. The only solution I could come up with is - two blogs.

Not being very clever I gave them simple names.

There is this blog: drcamey on marketing and its companion blog: drcamey on everything.

You see, I love marketing and love sharing what little I know about marketing theory and best practices; however, I came to the academic world after a career in the U.S. Coast Guard. I have lived and worked all over the world from the island of Con Son to the island of Iceland. I like to think I am not an ivory tower academic. Rather, my life experiences have broadened my interests to the extent I am interested in and have opinions on many topics.

This blog will focus on marketing and marketing education issues. If you want a taste of my other interests - pretty unfocused - visit drcamey on everyting.

I look forward to your comments. Engage me. Challenge me (and yourself). Make this fun.