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J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. Client Research Project

Mary Buttram

Kelli Klecan Hailey Lapin Mike Phelan

Lauren Moeller

mebuttram@gmail.com kelliklecan@ku.edu hlapin@ku.edu mphelan@ku.edu lmoeller90@yahoo.com

December 10, 2012

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary Background Secondary Research Primary Research Recommendations Works Cited

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Executive Summary

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Executive Summary Background J.C. Penney, Inc. is a department store chain based out of Paso, Texas that services families across the United States. In addition to apparel and home furnishings, jcpenney also provides accessories, shoes, bedding and a variety of services (salon, optical) to clients. Jcpenney just celebrated its 100th birthday, and in January of 2012, jcpenney began its third rebranding in three years of their in-store and online presence. Research Objectives Coinciding with jcpenney’s mixed feedback on its current rebranding, our group was curious to discover the effect jcpenney’s rebranding has on a college demographic. Though college students are not in jcpenney’s central demographic, they have large buying power and a well-established presence online. In order to examine college students’ opinions on jcpenney’s rebranding, we organized a three-tier research project:

1. Conduct secondary research to obtain a deeper understanding of jcpenney as a brand.

2. Conduct a focus group with students at the University of Kansas primarily focusing on brand perception.

3. Analyzing the qualitative responses from the focus group to design and distribute an online survey via social media.

Major Findings

Secondary Research: Gained background information on jcpenney’s rebranding and changes in leadership of jcpenney’s executive staff. Tools like Radian6 informed us of what social media and mainstream media users are saying about jcpenney brand.

Focus Group: College Students are generally receptive and respond well to the jcpenney rebranding, but have no interest in shopping there. Feedback for clothes and styles jcpenney has to offer was positive.

Online Survey: The majority of college students surveyed were unaware of jcpenney’s rebranding, but responded positively to jcpenney’s new logo and commercial. The participants gave insight on how jcpenney’s rebranding could appeal to a younger audience.

Recommendations After gauging the lack of connection between the jcpenney’s contemporary new style and the lack of motivation college students have to shop for the brand— we as team, Red 5, recommend the following strategies:

In a rapidly changing digital world, jcpenney needs to connect with a younger demographic through the web.

o Utilize the currently active social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to focus on college students in different ways.

o Expand jcpenney’s reach through online advertising by tapping into new tools like Spotify, Pandora and Instagram, which have a higher usage amount for college students.

o On-campus campaigning to increase brand awareness. Promote jcpenney’s “wear to work” line of business professional apparel to a

demographic wanting to expand their wardrobe as they enter the workforce.

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Background

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Background

J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. is a mid-range department store chain based out of Plano,

Texas. On Jan. 25 and 26 of 2012, jcpenney unveiled a blueprint for a major rebranding of the

company’s logo, online and in-store presence through the proposition of its “Fair and Square”

strategy restructuring previous advertising methods and focusing on consistently low prices for

clients (Thomas, E., 2012). Instead of sending out multiple mailings advertising weekly sales,

jcpenney changed everyday “low prices,” and started offering large sales once a month.

Jcpenney also hired comedian Ellen DeGeneres as the spokesperson for the new brand image.

The rebranding has received mixed reviews. Though media analysis at Mashable.com praised

the bold changes, jcpenney stock and the support of middle-class families dropped rapidly

during the first half of 2012—prompting massive layoffs and closings of several retail stores

(Bhanote, S., 2011).

Six months before the announcement of jcpenney’s rebranding, a SWOT analysis was

configured. According to jcpenney, one of its strengths is its an efficient supply chain. Some

opportunities include strategic expansion initiatives and the growth of brands. Jcpenney lacks

capitol resources and are threatened by intense competition of similar stores and by the fast-

changing fashion trends and pricing pressure. The company’s business focuses on the sale of

merchandise and the services to consumers through department stores and direct channels

(Financial and Strategy Analysis, 2011).

This is a necessary time for jcpenney to take action because it has been almost a year

since it announced the rebranding. It is a good time to evaluate its recent campaign and make

adjustments accordingly.

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Secondary Research Situation Analysis

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Company Analysis

J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. is the holding company for J.C. Penney, Inc. In 1902,

James Cash Penney founded the company on the principle of the Golden Rule, which is still in

tact across stores today in The United States and Puerto Rico (Company History). Jcpenney sells

apparel, jewelry, shoes, accessories and home furnishings through its department stores, catalogs

and the Internet. It also offers salon, optical, portrait photography and custom decorating

services. The company prides itself on providing style and quality at a “fair square price” (J.C

Penney Company Inc., 2012). According to the company’s SWOT analysis, it is ranked among

the top three retailers in the US with a total of 1,106 stores (J.C Penney Company Inc., 2012).

In June of 2011, the company hired Ron Johnson as the new CEO. The following

January, the company announced its major rebranding plans to “transform the jcpenney shopping

experience by fundamentally re-imagining every aspects of the Company’s business” (Corporate

Social Responsibility). The rebranding included a redesign of the company’s logo, re-

emphasizing the “fair and square” philosophy and a redesign of the stores themselves. The

company also brought in comedian and talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres as jcpenney’s new

brand partner. After the company released its new spokeswoman, Facebook protests broke out in

anti-gay boycotts. Johnson supports DeGeneres who is openly gay and the company’s decision

saying she shares the same values as jcpenney (Task, 2012).

Although the initial stages of the rebranding officially began Feb. 1, 2012, in-store

updates were made in August. Jcpenney also announced the installation of private label shops

including Liz Claiborne and IZOD within the department store, which started on Sept. 1 (Wahba,

P., 2012). The last week of August 2012, jcpenney’s shares rose 3.7 percent, which is still below

levels recorded earlier this year, but up 39 percent from more than a three-year-low reached last

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month (Wahba, P., 2012). The finished transformation of jcpenney from the rebranding plans to

be complete by 2015 (Corporate Social Responsibility).

Consumer/Audience Analysis

According to a company profile on Apparel Search, “jcpenney does business with over

half of the households in America each year.” Because of its vast array of merchandise and

services, jcpenney serves a wide range of customers each year. According to an article in Direct

Marketing News, “jcpenney’s target demographic is 25-to 44-year olds, leaning mostly female.”

An article in Business Insider says the middle class; middle-America segment comprises the bulk

of the jcpenney audience.

In 2004 a new CEO took over the company and under him, “jcpenney upped its fashion

quotient, launching a number of new clothing lines aimed particularly at middle-income women

between the ages of 35 and 54, a core demographic group that the company had identified as

underserved” (Company History). Jcpenney is aware of their core demographic groups and has

changed their marketing strategies and merchandises numerous times over the years to better

reach their core audience. In a quantcast report of jcpenney online activity, 65 percent of people

that utilize jcpenney.com are female. The main age group of online users are adults ages 25-34.

Household income of online users is $100,000 to 150,00 per year, and 42 percent of users are

college graduates. Overall, in an average year, jcpenney will serve over half of American

households. However, their main target audiences are females in their mid twenties to early

fifties.

Market Analysis Jcpenney recently completed a rebranding campaign in hopes of drawing customers back

into stores after a sharp decline in sales during the economic recession. Part of the new campaign

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strategy aimed towards weaning customers off of coupons and sales events. “Month-long values”

replaced sales and coupons to try and show customers that everyday pricing meant lower cost

than a sale and a coupon. Despite new marketing efforts, jcpenney sales have continued to

decline. Chief executive Ron Johnson said, “We're moving away from the word 'month-long

value' because no one really understood that, to calling it what we intended to do, a sale” (J.C.

Penney brings back the word ‘sale,’ 2012).

Jcpenney customers are attracted to sales and coupons. The economy has put a lot of

strain on the wallet of the average American. Removing sales from which consumers have come

to expect the thrill of the deal does not appear to be the right answer for jcpenney (O’Donnell,

2012). Jcpenney customers want to feel like they are saving money through the act of clipping

coupons and going to sales because they are being proactive in the budgeting of their disposable

income (O’Donnell, 2012).

According to a Radian 6 report compiled from Sept. 23 through Oct. 23, Facebook and

Twitter users spoke with mixed reviews about jcpenney’s rebranding going into the holiday

season. Though Twitter, users tweeted

words like “wow,” “great,” “love,” “free”

and “jobs”. To the left, you can see the

word cloud generated by Radian6 that

includes tops words tweeted about the

brand. One Twitter account,

@RETAILERSTOCKS, tweeted on Oct.

23 “Why J.C. Penney is Not Worth

Buying” and expressed negative

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sentiment. Another twitter user, @KennyKing4, tweeted “J.C. Penney is now called ‘JCP’—

maybe they can trick people into shopping there” (Radian6).

Mainstream media articles complied by Radian6 expressed more sensitive sentiment to

the jcpenney brand. An article on retailerstocks.com analyzed jcpenney’s stock prospects in

September of 2012, primarily focusing on the drop of jcpenney’s stock in the second quarter

(Radian6).

Brand Analysis

Along with a major rebranding of store logo and overall retail look, in January 2012,

jcpenney hired former Target Corp. CEO Michael Francis to oversee a major redefinition of

jcpenney’s brand. In addition to logo and store makeovers, Francis explained in statement how

his campaign will focus on better explaining a “three-tier pricing strategy that entails everyday

low prices that are 40 percent lower than a year ago; month-long sales that are deeper and are on

select items; and clearance sale events or "Best Price Friday" sales (D'Inocenzio, A., 2012). As

part of its new marketing strategy, jcpenney discontinued the practice of sending multiple

advertisements and coupons in the mail. Instead, it chose to mail consumers a monthly catalogue

of low prices. In an article on Forbes’s website, market analysis Michele Clark said that

jcpenney shoppers found the “Best Price” value difficult to explain due to a inconsistent

comparison to other prices. According to Clark, only “16 percent of shoppers associated ‘Best

Prices’ with jcpenney. Furthermore, customers cited bargains as harder to find and fewer aisles

with deals” (Olenski, S., 2012). Jcpenney hired celebrity Ellen DeGeneres in order to connect

more personally with consumers but faced criticism from the group One Million Moms for

“jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon” and for choosing the publically gay DeGeneres as

spokeswoman (Couch, A., 2012). The group also criticized jcpenney for their Mother’s Day

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adverting showing same-sex couples and specifically its June Father’s Day advertisements,

which featured real-life homosexual parents playing with their children (Couch, A., 2012). Later

in June, jcpenney released a statement saying Fancis would be leaving the company immediately

following a 20 percent drop in sales during the first quarter of 2012. Steve Olenski, brand analyst

at Forbes, said in an article for Forbes that this is the third rebranding for jcpenney in three years

and was especially problematic for the company’s public image and sales. As of July 2012, the

new CEO of jcpenney and former Apple executive Ron Johnson said jcpenney plans on laying

off 350 workers from its headquarters located in Plano, Texas and closing retail stores over the

country as stock prices for the jcpenney brand fall (AP Wire, 2012). One of the reasons for this

rapid downfall of the jcpenney brand is "[A] combination of poor messaging, tampering with the

merchandise flow and a slowing of the overall economic environment,” said retail analyst

Michael Exstein. The brand future of jcpenney is uncertain; among low stock prices and stores

closing the only way to test the efficiency of a rebranding is to see what time will tell.

Competition Analysis Jcpenney’s top two competitors are Kohl’s Corp. and Macy’s, Inc. (Company Profile,

Yahoo! Finance). Each of these companies is a direct competitor as they are both department

stores like jcpenney.

Kohl’s was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Menomonee, Wisconsin. Kohl’s

brought in revenue of 18.84 billion dollars within the last year and has 30,000 employees

(Company Profile, Yahoo! Finance). As of Aug. 9, 2012, it operated 1,134 stores in 49 states.

Nearly half of its stores are in the Midwest and West part of the United States (Company Profile,

Hoovers). Kohl’s is considered a discount department store where they sell moderately priced

name brand and private-label apparel, shoes, accessories and house wares. The top executives are

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Chairman, President and CEO Kevin Mansell, SEVP and CFO Wesley McDonald and Chief

Merchandising Officer Donald Brennan (Hoovers). Kohl’s uses campaigns like their ‘Shop to

Win’ campaign, featuring world-class athletes (Businesswire, 2012). Kohl’s uses social media

like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to engage its consumers.

Macy’s was founded in 1820 and is based in Cincinnati, Ohio (Yahoo! Finance). The

department store sells men, women and children’s apparel and accessories, cosmetics and home

furnishings (Company Profile, Hoovers). Macy’s has bought 850 stores in 45 states, the District

of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico (Company Profile, Hoovers). The company was formerly

known as Federated Department Stores, Inc. and changed its name to Macy’s, Inc. in June 2007

(Company Profile, Yahoo! Finance). There are 171,000 employees working for Macy’s and last

year’s revenue was 26.84 billion. The top executives at Macy’s are the Chairman, President and

CEO Terry Lundgren, CFO and Chief Administrative officer Thomas Cole (Company Profile,

Hoovers). On September 6, 2012, Macy’s held a big event as one of its recent campaigns.

Fashion’s Night Out was a “global celebration of fashion” (Fashion’s Night Out). Macy’s uses

several social media to reach their consumers such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube as well as its

own blog. Macy’s is also holding their annual spelling bee for kids. These events are important

because the engage their public and it is a great way to advertise. In addition to Macy’s there are

multiple department stores that are direct competitors to jcpenney such as Dillard’s or Sears.

In addition to direct competitors like Kohl’s and Macy’s, there are several indirect

competitors as well. Stores like Target and Wal-Mart are good examples of indirect competitors

because they sell retail and home goods, but they sell food unlike department stores. Anywhere

someone can spend money on goods would be considered an indirect competitor of jcpenney

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Primary Research

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Focus Group-Procedure

Methods

In order to more fully understand the relationship between college students and the

jcpenney brand, we had to collect qualitative data. We needed to determine the brand perception

that college students held concerning jcpenney and it’s brands, as well as the specific factors that

drive college students to shop at a particular department store. We also needed to find out the

current impressions that college students held about the recent rebranding of jcpenney. We

decided as a group that the best way to collect the qualitative data we needed was to hold a focus

group. Holding a focus group allows us to have an in-depth discussion in a non-threatening

environment.

Our group held a focus group on October 2, at 5:30 p.m. The session took place at the

University of Kansas in Stauffer-Flint in room 104. Six students ranging between the ages of 20

and 22 participated in the focus group. Our professor selected five participants and one

participant was a friend of the moderator. Each participant was a student at the University of

Kansas School of Journalism. After each participant was introduced and the rules of the

discussion were clearly explained to each participant, we began our questioning.

Findings

The focus group discussion began with questions about the participants shopping habits

and which factors they valued from a store during their shopping experience. The moderator

asked how often and where the participants shopped for clothing. After introducing our topic, the

moderator moved to key questions concerning jcpenney’s brand awareness and perception. With

the key questions, we were able to determine the participants’ attitudes towards jcpenney and

their thoughts about the recent rebranding. We compared and contrasted new and old media

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including receipts, commercials, logos and the newly redesigned jcpenney website. The focus

group ended with questions that allowed each individual participant to add input regarding

jcpenney and the recent rebranding campaign. Overall the focus group session lasted 31 minutes.

Initially, we asked the participants how often they went shopping for clothes. While some

went shopping every few weeks for various clothing items, most went shopping when the season

changed or when they were with their parents during breaks from school. They said that they did

not use coupons because they did not like the crowd and the rush that comes along with using

them. The department stores they most commonly frequented were Nordstrom, Macy’s and

Dillard’s. They valued the high quality of the clothing items and good customer service.

Very few of the participants had shopped at jcpenney within the past year. Only one had

been inside the store since the rebranding. When they were asked what they thought of jcpenney,

one person said, “I think of those fluorescent lights and I didn’t feel comfortable.” Another

participant said, “I see it on the cheap end of the department stores.” They felt that a lot of the

clothes were cheap and of low quality. Most of the participants stated that they do not go to

jcpenney to buy clothes. The participants who did shop at jcpenney said that when they went into

the store, they knew exactly what they were there to buy and that they were unlikely to browse

through the other products that jcpenney sells. The participants agreed almost unanimously that

the most common jcpenney customers were middle class and lower middle class families on a

budget. Despite their thoughts of the jcpenney brand, they said that getting a particularly good

deal would motivate them to buy something at jcpenney. They were most likely to buy

something at jcpenney if they felt that what they were buying did not need to be of high quality.

Low prices on basic necessities like towels and back-to-school items were a big motivator for

students on a tight budget to shop at jcpenney.

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We also asked the participants about the recent rebranding of jcpenney. Each participant

was aware that jcpenney was in the process of a brand overhaul and that the company was trying

to reach a new audience. They had learned about the rebranding from a journalism class taken in

a previous semester. The first thing that was mentioned when asked about their knowledge of the

rebranding was Ellen DeGeneres, who was hired as the new jcpenney spokesperson. They also

knew that jcpenney had introduced a new pricing strategy that eliminated cents from the price

tags. They also mentioned the new logo and thought that jcpenney was trying to gain a more

professional image.

Our group showed the participants various forms of shopping experience media,

including bags and receipts from before and after the rebranding with the new updated logo. All

of the participants liked the new logo and felt that it looked more clean and professional than the

previous logo that jcpenney had used in the past. One participant mentioned that the new logo

reminded them of the American flag. They liked the new thicker paper on the receipts without

the clutter of coupons as well. However, some of the participants felt that the new plastic bags

that jcpenney used to put customers purchases in felt cheap. One person said that they thought

that paper bags were of higher quality compared to plastic bags.

Media from outside the store was also presented to the focus group. We showed them a

television commercial from before and after the rebranding, as well as the new updated jcpenney

Web site. Some liked the new website and thought that the design was much more streamlined

and organized, especially with the new logo. It made them want to stay on the site for longer and

explore. They thought it gave jcpenney a higher quality image. Others did not think that the Web

site made much of a difference in their perception of the brand. They felt that the new

commercials were much more appealing compared to the older commercials. The bright colors in

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the new commercials were preferred to the white background and flashing sales of the old

commercials. The participants did not like all the mentions of sales that the old commercials had.

They all agreed that they would much rather watch the newer version.

The moderator then explained the concept of the mini boutiques. The participants liked

the idea and felt that it would make the jcpenney stores seem less cluttered. They also thought

that it would make finding what they wanted much easier and seemed to match up more with the

set up in stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom. One participant also mentioned that they would

rather spend their money at a store with consistently low prices versus a store that used sales and

coupons. Another participant said that if they wanted to buy something that they would buy it

regardless of whether or not it was on sale.

Overall, the participants in the focus group felt that they were not the target audience for

jcpenney and would continue to frequent stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom. They all agreed that

jcpenney has done a good job in its rebranding, but it was not enough to drive them into the

jcpenney stores to shop and spend money. One participant said, “I still don’t see myself saying

‘Mom, let’s go to jcpenney and check out the rebranding.” They felt that jcpenney was more

interested in targeting families rather than targeting college students. The participants wanted to

see more things related to college life, similar to the “Room Essentials” line at Target. They feel

that jcpenney is going to have to do more in order to get customers into the doors, especially if

jcpenney wants to reach a college demographic.

Online Survey

Methods

Our primary research on jcpenney is also based on an online survey and its findings. We

felt the method of using a survey would be a quick and convenient way to gather results from a

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large population. We constructed the survey on surveygizmo.com, and it consisted of 25

questions (not including additional comments section at the end of the survey). Using a survey

allowed us to ask a variety of different questions such as nominal, rank and interval questions

that had responses relevant to the research that we were looking for. Because our objective

focuses on students who are enrolled in some sort of higher education, we felt that reaching our

target with a survey would be most successful by advertising through social media networks. All

five of our group members posted a link to the survey on their Facebook and Twitter pages. We

found that our followers and friends came mostly from different universities and social groups,

making our results representative of a broad, student-based population. Not only was the link to

the survey posted on our personal accounts, but it was also posted to the KU Journalism School

Facebook page for more visibility. Although our group did not have a problem with gathering an appropriate number of

responses, after our first round of posting our survey, we realized our results were somewhat

skewed. When we posted the survey link on social media sites, we were clear to include some

sort of call to action for college students only. However, 6.9 percent of our initial 145 responses

came back as non-college students. These responses did not relate to our research objective of

focusing strictly on the thoughts and opinions of college students regarding jcpenney’s

rebranding. After pushing the survey out a second time and filtering out the respondents who

were not college students, our data consisted of 167 completed surveys, 65 partially completed

surveys and 150 of them were college students only.

Findings

After about a week and a half of the survey being open, our group closed it to the public

so we could review the results. The majority of our respondents were females compared to 23

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percent of males that chose to take part in the online survey. Our group found this as acceptable

because jcpenney’s target demographic is mostly female. Our results were filtered so it only

included college students, close to 65 percent reporting to have at lease some college.

Our survey included questions regarding college student’s shopping habits as well. In

order of importance, we

found that the overall rank

of factors that go into

college students shopping

purchases included price,

style and quality,

respectively. Brand had the

lowest rank in the results

for this particular question. Similarly in the ranking system, wide selection of available products

ranked highest in factors that go into college student’s shopping choices and store display ranked

last amongst three other options.

An important question that we analyzed was how these college students ranked jcpenney

amongst other department and retail store. Jcpenney ranked fourth place out of a total of six

listed stores that are similar in store selection and affordability. Target ranked first overall and

Sears ranked last in sixth place. From these results, our group summarized the bulk of our survey

respondents as current college students who do not shop often, but when they do, are motivated

by price and wide selection of available products the most.

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One major finding was that over half of our respondents who were college students were

unaware of jcpenney’s

recent rebranding as of

January 2012. How

could respondents’

initial opinions be

altered so they would be

more inclined to visit

the stores or

jcpenney.com if they had no reason to believe it would be different? Our group came to the

conclusion that having a solid awareness of jcpenney’s rebranding would create more interest

and curiosity for college students to shop or browse through the store’s selections.

When we asked survey respondents how they heard of the rebranding, again, the majority

reported not being aware of it. However, about 30 percent said they knew of the rebranding

through traditional advertisements, including television commercials and banners. This leads to

the next finding in our survey research analysis: the effectiveness of the rebranding.

Jcpenney’s rebranding consisted of two major parts. The company promised in-store

changes such as

the boutique-like

set ups and sales

promotions

rather than

couponing all in

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a “faire-square” price range. These two characteristics were supplemented by new television

commercials, a new spokesperson (Ellen DeGeneres) and a new jcpenney logo. In the survey, we

asked questions regarding opinions on one of jcpenney’s newer commercials, the new look of the

logo, Ellen DeGeneres and if these new aspects of the brand would make them more inclined to

visit jcpenney stores or jcpenney.com. The general results for each of these questions were

positive; the majority of the respondents liked the commercial and the new logo, approved of

Ellen DeGeneres and were, for the most part, more inclined to visit the website and stores after

seeing these factors of the rebranding. Because jcpenney’s rebranding involved tactics relevant

to a younger audience such as being more modern and streamline, it made sense to our group that

the positive feedback was higher than the negative. However, our group did not want to ignore

those respondents who did not think too fondly of some of the rebranding aspects. How would

jcpenney reach other college students that were not impacted by the rebranding? After analyzing

all of the survey results, our group took away that jcpenney’s rebranding was successful. The

company did

everything in order

to increase brand

awareness and

perception and

even potentially

sales. In the

survey, we asked if

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after learning more about jcpenney’s rebranding, how likely the respondents were to recommend

jcpenney to a friend. Even though 33 percent of respondents felt that they were likely to

recommend the company, 36 percent chose “neutral” as their answer.

From our Cross Tabulation results, we found that the majority of positive responses to

jcpenney’s rebranding came from a female demographic. About 45 percent of females reported

saying “yes” to knowing about the rebranding while 54.8 percent said they were unaware.

However, of all the people who said “yes” to the question overall, 82.5% were female. In

addition to having knowledge of the rebranding awareness, the reports from the Cross

Tabulations gave us specific feedback from rebranding aspects as well. For example, after

viewing a commercial of jcpenney’s rebranding, 80.6 percent of the respondents that enjoyed the

commercial were women. Only 6.1 percent of the total amount of female respondents disliked

the commercial.

When studying the Cross Tabulations responses from males, the majority agreed or

strongly disagreed that the look of the new logo was modern and streamline. An interesting

finding was 30.6 percent of the males responded neutral if the logo appealed to them or not.

Having in mind that jcpenney’s core target audience is females, it makes sense that this statistic

came out to what it is. Whether or not the success of jcpenney’s rebranding impacts college

students, both male and female, is a bigger question to tackle.

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Recommendations

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Recommendations  

Our jcpenney survey yields impressive research. From those results, we were able to infer

and analyze possible recommendations for jcpenney in its rebranding strategies. For example, we

found that more people hadn’t heard of jcpenney’s recent rebranding than had. This in itself is

very telling for the future of jcpenney. The company needs to continue to spread the word about

the new brand image and we believe that we can offer a few suggestions that could potentially

increase awareness for new and returning customers. The results also show that college students value style and price over brand or quality

when making purchases. College students also agree that they are more inclined to visit jcpenney

after viewing the new commercial compared to the older advertisements. This is valuable

information when analyzing the most productive process to target college students. An overall

theme that our group suggested was using all kinds of social media to involve college students.

Nowadays, our world is technologically savvy, and we feel as though college students would be

more likely to shop specifically at jcpenney if it were to increase its social media presence.

Jcpenney has an active Twitter account. However, to be top of mind for college students,

we recommend incentives for following jcpenney’s Twitter account. This will hype awareness,

promote and encourage students to visit the store to reap his or her benefits. In addition,

jcpenney has a strong Facebook page, but it should advertise with Facebook banners because the

site will filter information for students who are in college and like to shop. The results also show

that students are more inclined to shop if they have a coupon. While jcpenney’s new campaign is

fresh, students still want some kind of reason to visit the store. Coupons are not necessarily the

only way to bring college students into the store, but by finding another way to offer incentives,

it can target college students more productively. Another idea we recommend is creating an

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Instagram account. This would be used to showcase different outfits created from different

brands and styles offered at jcpenney. The instagram could spotlight different individuals

wearing clothing from jcpenney or shopping at the store in order to further personalize the

strategy.

Social media networks are not the only way to connect with this particular target market.

On-campus motivation and other forms of advertising are important as well. On the University of

Kansas campus, there are many Campus Representatives for different organizations and

companies such as Vince Cumoto, Pink and Microsoft. This could be a way for jcpenney to

directly connect with individuals in college and hype awareness on campus. Sweepstakes are

another tactic to use when wanting to gain participation and support of an organization. Right

now, jcpenney is doing its button campaign where customers collect different buttons with

sweepstakes codes on the back. This motivates customers to visit the store and redeem their

codes in order to win different prizes. This is a great campaign that could easily work on a

college campus as well. Sweepstakes are an effective way to decrease physical coupons, yet

continue to amp up awareness.

Jcpenney should advertise on online music applications like Spotify and Pandora because

they are free devices of which students are prone to using. Many students prefer to listen to

music through online applications like such because there is a wide variety of free music as well

as personalized radios. These programs are well liked among students and are a growing

industry.

Along with catering to college students with the placement of jcpenney advertisements,

we recommend creating a clothing line specific and relevant to them as well. Jcpenney should

further promote their wear-to-work clothing line, targeting college students who are looking for

27

professional clothes for student jobs, internships and future careers after graduation. This

demographic will soon be young professional and could utilize jcpenney to build their

professional wardrobe.

There are many more ideas and suggestions, but for college students in particular, our

group wanted to focus on the use of social media and increasing awareness for college students.

Based off of the results of our findings, it was obvious that jcpenney’s presence isn’t the

problem; it is the fact that they are not catering to college students or offering incentives or a

specific call-to-action for students to visit the store. We want to hype up involvement on college

campuses and persuade students that jcpenney is a great place to shop.

28

References

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