Michael Francis gone from retailer like a bad Penney

Michael Francis

Late Monday afternoon, J.C. Penney announced its president Michael Francis was immediately departing the company. Francis was wished well in an official statement. And that was that.

Yes, in a flash Francis was gone from one of America’s iconic department stores.  Gone less than eight months after he arrived to reinvent J.C. Penney largely through the magic of marketing and advertising.  

And in that same instant that Francis was gone, an important statement was made about the state of marketing and advertising in America today.  But of course few of the very people who should have been paying the most attention to this important moment were doing so. 

Rather, many potentates in the ad world were already in Cannes slathering on the sunscreen and preparing for a week of fun and frolic on the shores of the Mediterranean.  Ostensibly, of course, these titans and some of their less powerful minions were there to attend the annual International Festival of Creativity and to pay homage to that great god Creativity that is the bedrock of the American advertising industry.

What a laugh, right?

But back to Francis and the shambles in which he has left J.C. Penney and its efforts to spin a coherent marketing message out of a jumble of nonsense he and his boss, CEO Ron Johnson, rolled out only last January. 

As for Johnson, a former Apple retail store guru, he may have had the balls to fire Francis. But the Penney’s board of directors should also be aware Johnson is as much responsible as Francis is for this mess at Penney’s.

For now, Johnson apparently intends to take over the marketing function from the departed Francis, who spent more than two decades rising through the Target marketing ranks to become its chief marketing officer before Johnson brought him in to Penney’s.

Campaigns never reflected Penney’s heartland values

If nothing else, Francis’s brief reign at Penney’s should serve as a vivid reminder of much damage can be done to a company in a very short time by executives who think they know it all and are extraordinarily aggressive about demonstrating just how much they think they know.

Right from the get-go, when the new Penney’s marketing campaign began last winter, nothing about it felt right -— at least for a brand that was so closely associated with the American heartland.

Ellen DeGeneres in overproduced JCP spot First there were the obnoxious screaming shoppers in the teaser TV ads that demanded attention be paid to the announcement change was coming at J.C. Penney. Then came the smarmy attempts at humor in the lavishly-produced television spots featuring lesbian comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres that debuted on the Oscar telecast.

What we hated most, however, about the rapidly-unfolding marketing makeover was the decision to scrap the Penney’s brand name altogether and foist the meaningless and vapid initials “JCP” on the shopping public.

If nothing else, the public probably felt a genuine bond with the Penney’s brand name that had been a familiar, comforting presence in so many small and medium-sized towns in America’s heartland for decades.

Rebranding strategies failed to redefine retailer

The switch to “JCP” reminded us immediately of the move by many ad agencies over the past couple of decades to rebrand themselves as tacky amalgams of meaningless initials. 

It’s no coincidence that since this rebranding trend begin in the ad world, most of the agencies that have gone that route have lost much of their distinct identities.  Now most of these shops are no more than globs of often-overpaid, marginally-talented people looking for the next big account to help them pay off their mortgages.

The decision to eradicate the Penney’s name from the brand was, by itself, a painfully clear indication of how ruthless Francis and Johnson were going to be in their ill-fated attempt to redefine what an iconic department store chain would be under their leadership.

Yet these were leaders, as it soon became evident, who didn’t even know how to develop a coherent pricing strategy.  That much was made manifest in a slew of newspaper display ads over the past three months that tried to communicate JCP’s new pricing strategy.

As things began to quickly fall apart at JCP, the marketing press insisted this muddled pricing formula was at the crux of what caused an almost immediate plunge in revenue at Penney’s.

But we weren’t convinced.

Yes, the pricing was certainly a poorly-thought-out proposition — like just about every other aspect of JCP’s new marketing game plan. But if people still wanted to shop at Penney’s, we figured, they could go into the stores and decide for themselves if they liked the merchandise and the price points enough to buy something.

Penney’s not the place for sexual politics

Though we can’t prove it conclusively, we suspect the real rub to many JCP shoppers in the American heartland was the none-too-subtle progressive sexual politics twist that Francis and Johnson chose to insert in the marketing mix.

Maybe Penney’s core shoppers could have tolerated the DeGeneres spokesperson tie-in. But when Francis and Johnson began peppering their new monthly mailers with images of lesbian and gay couples, we suspect  many core Penney’s shoppers in the deeply-religious heartland suddenly realized this wasn’t the Penney’s they thought they knew. 

We may never know for sure why Francis and Johnson thought they had to move so quickly to put JCP at the forefront of the sexual revolution in America. There’s nothing wrong with being progressive.  It’s just knowing how to make one’s progressive attitudes known that’s key. 

JCP agencies’ future up in the air 

But Francis is gone from JCP.  And we wouldn’t be surprised if the ad shops he brought in to help transform JCP, including Mother in New York and Peterson Milla Hooks in Minneapolis, are gone soon too.

We can blame Francis and Johnson all we want for this glaring JCP debacle that reminds us bold advertising isn’t always smart marketing.  But where were Mother and PMH during all of this? Did no one there believe this wasn’t the right marketing strategy to roll out?  Or were they just going along for the ride and collecting the big fees?

Questions certainly worth considering while all those ad folk are basking in the bright sun in Cannes.

Contact Lewis Lazare at LewisL3@aol.com