Comments

Kevin may be one of the best, but the odds are against most agency/cient relationships. We should wish him luck.

The typical lifecycle of an agency/client relationship is this:

1. Courtship. The agency pursues the client, well groomed and on its best behavior, making great promises of commitment.

2. Consumation. The client and agency agree to partnership, through some sort of act of bonding and mutual recognition.

3. Honeymoon. The first few weeks of afterglow are marked with proud public pronouncements of the relationship.

4. Potholes. Sometime during week 3 at least one person on each side will be disappointed by at least one person on the other side.

5. Reality. About six weeks into it, serious doubts begin to set in on each side, usually at the lower ranks first.

6. Breakup. Happens sometime between week 7 and the next 10 years. Every minute through that period is excruciating.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at September 12, 2006 6:02 PM

It's all in how Roberts twists the meanings of Mystery, Sensuality, and Intimacy to semantically transform JC Penny from a trademark to a "lovemark." After all, Roberts has managed to twist those meanings to think of Tide as a lovemark. Tide? Lovemark? Hmm ...

Posted by johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) at September 12, 2006 6:14 PM

Sorry, but an ad agency isn't going to make JC Penney or any other company a "lovemark." You either deliver the goods (and the experience) or you don't. Not saying Penney's can't do it... just that advertising is not the cure-all.

Posted by Dave at September 12, 2006 10:52 PM

The Ullman/Roberts matchup...
one word... MAGIC!
Wait, watch, see!!!

Posted by lem at September 12, 2006 11:08 PM

I used to work for an ad agency and the client I worked for was a large retailer. I am a firm believer in the experience that the typical shopper has at the stores. You can have the best creative in the world--if a shopper's experience at the stores is forgettable or poor, then it will not be successful. That's why Nordstrom and Target are doing well.

I haven't been to Penney's for a while, but I wasn't too impressed--a lot of clothes cluttered all over the place. Narrow aisles. It was kind of a clausterphobic experience. I know an agency's first inclination is to create ads that are effective and clever, but if they don't get those stores looking better it won't matter. Just my opinion.

Tim

Posted by Tim at September 12, 2006 11:50 PM

I've been reading Kevin Roberts for years now. (Mind you, how much I retain or understand is a differnt ball of wax. (smile)) For one thing, Kevin may correct you that S&S is not an advertising agency, it is an ideas company. And being an ideas company, I suspect S&S is not going to restrict its advice to what most people perceived as "advertising" alone.

If I were a betting man, I would bet my Canadian dollar that Kevin will manage to pull of the difficult task of turning JC Penny into a Lovemark. For that, I am willing to be patient and see how the master does the magical transformation. And learn from it.

By the way, I have posted two recent blog entries about Lovemark in the last month.

http://kempton.ideasRevolution.com/2006/08/19/brands-lovemarks-building/

http://kempton.ideasRevolution.com/2006/09/12/kevin-roberts-turning-lovemark-into-a-cool-us430-million-jc-penny-contract/

Cheers,
Kempton

Posted by kempton at September 13, 2006 1:09 AM

Internally = What am I gonna do differently this monday morning.
Customers = What would drag me in JC Penny this monday morning, and when I'm in there, to fork over.

If Kevin can do this it's a dun deal.

Posted by rachel dorrell at September 13, 2006 5:17 AM

JC Penney where I'm at is amazingly a cool place to hang already & just got 2 black Levi shorts @ $18 total, end of season ... & there associates are cute ...

Posted by sean at September 13, 2006 8:15 AM

thats an interesting spin. Now Kevin has a live customer to transform !! Lets see if he can pull it off. Lovemarks in theory is a great read, putting it to practice in the real world is a totall different story.

The space contention is huge... a "lovemark" can easily dissapper with just 1 posting on yourtube !!

Posted by /pd at September 13, 2006 8:36 AM

Based on Sean's feedback, I'll drop by my local JC Penney this weekend. I haven't been there in many a......hmmmmm.......not sure how long. Anyway, "amazingly cool" and cute associates is high praise and a magical formula. I want to see if Sean's experience is a chain-wide or a local phenomenon. I'm not optimistic but maybe that's a local phenomenon on MY end. All the rebranding in the world won't change a thing if the product doesn't change with it. It becomes a case of over promising and under delivering or simply perfuming the pig.

Posted by Ed Di Gangi at September 13, 2006 10:00 AM

Apple Computer is a lovemark. Imagine Gateway, of a few years back, hiring in an agency to make them a lovemark too, you know — "like Apple."

Nike is a lovemark via everything they sell (clothes, lifestyle, function, coolness, aspiration). Imagine TJMax hiring an agency to make them a lovemark too, you know "like Nike."

Kevin certainly has his work cut out. But those transformations happen because someone within, at the very top, with vision and commitment and board approval and a talented team and cash reserves and time and luck and a sense about how to craft and connect a brand experience to their customers experience, commits full on. It doesn't happen by hiring in an idea company to jack in the latest communications trickery.

But then again, maybe if you throw enough money at a situation you can convince the customer that JCPenny has in fact become the next great lovemark. You know, "like Nordstroms".

Posted by Michael Longfellow at September 13, 2006 11:04 AM

This is a design issue all the away around, in my view. Certainly, all of the imagery surrounding Penney's has a dated feel. Their catalogs, instore signage and advertizing strategy all has a feeling of "yesterday's department store." So do the store designs and layouts. free trial viagra canada

But beyond all of that, it's the design of the items they carry that is poor. The clothing they carry is so... what's the word? Ugly. And boring. Target is selling at a lower price point than Penney's and yet the Target product buyers actually select items that have more modern design. The cuts are better, the fits are better, the colors are better.

Getting over the connotation the name "JC Penney" conjures will be less of an issue than implementing the product and experiential changes that would bring people back to the store.

Posted by Dean at September 20, 2006 1:01 PM