Amplify Your Personality

I currently have a love-hate relationship with JCPenney.

The last month and a half have been eating, breathing and sleeping that store, trying to find a creative way to build it a new ad campaign. Well, all that eating, breathing and sleeping finally spawned life yesterday afternoon. 

About two months ago in my Introduction to Advertising class our teacher told us that we would be responsible for brainstorming, designing and creating a new advertising campaign for JCPenney aimed at bringing woman aged 20-34 into the store. The task? Write an advertising plan book with research on the target market, a campaign strategy, plan of execution and the creative work of the campaign, including; several print ads, a television commercial storyboard and alternative media advertisements. With little more than a photocopied case-study we set off on our journey. Earlier in the semester, the class divided into groups representing different real-world ad agencies. We are Merkley+Partners, I could nearly tell you as much about them as I could about JCPenney. This is where I say we are the best ad agency out there. I have had the best partners to work with for the project. Stephanie is a photography major who I actually know from freshman year and got reacquainted with thanks to this class. She has been such an important player in the creation of our ads and was always willing to take on one more thing. Amanda has given us a ton of insights into the life of a true shopper and wrote huge amounts of the book. Joel also did his fair share of writing for the book and was ready to give help to anyone that asked for it. Garren single-handedly designed the whole book, taking everything we gave him and turn it into a congruent work of beauty. 

Although we met weekly and worked each week on our individual assignments, this last week was labor-intensive. Our time commitment reached its climax when we all spent over 12 hours straight in the lab from mid-afternoon Thursday and finally leaving at 4:30 Friday morning. The book was printed by Friday at noon and turned in several hours before it was officially due. And boy does the final product look good!

This may be a biased opinion, but her is what my sister said after she got a special sneak-peak in exchange for editing it for us.

"Overall Impressions:

Great job! Visually, the book is amazing and designed SO well. It's catchy, hip and easy to follow and read. Your ads themselves are genius, totally professional level, and something that I can see a company totally getting behind (if they are smart!). I fit in the target market and find your descriptions of ME pretty darn accurate! I would totally use the facebook app, and think the other ads are really catchy too. This whole campaign seems fresh and new, and the ads seem almost like Target's strategy - which are always memorable and hip but still classy. I think the bottom line is, if you can change how the women view the store, saving money will become secondary to them enjoying shopping and amplifying their personality by finding things that are really them. If they see (through your ads and apps) that what they are looking for is actually at JC Penney, they will be there! I love how your campaign shows  them what JC Penney offers (specifically for them, even!) and then brings them in! Totally fits what you identified about them finding what they like online and then shopping in store."

It has been a lot of work but it has been very rewarding. As far as JCPenney goes, I encourage all women aged 20-35 to give it a try. We are fully aware of it being openly labelled 'that place where my mom shops' and our campaign was designed to work with what JCPenney already has to breakdown what truly are misconceived perceptions. Possibly my favorite part of the project? Taking our first 'field trip' to JCPenney as a group. The drive over was filled with conversations of how little JCPenney had to offer. Walking to the doors Amanda said, "this is my first time ever going to JCPenney everyone!" We were not expecting much. The girls walked through the doors and the first thing we heard was "WOW!" as each of them split up to check out the display items on both sides of the aisle. Although inferior to our own new advertising campaign slogan, JCPenney really does mean it when they say "It's All Inside."

I love you Merkley. I love you JCPenney.