JCPenney, seemingly a permanent fixture in the news these days, seeks to push past the negative financial and branding headlines and tap into customer experience with their new pop-up shops, which will hopefully garner appeal from designer collaborations. 

The store, which is currently embroiled in a high-stakes trial with Macy's and Martha Stewart over product licenses, has had a rough time since CEO Ron Johnson took over a year ago. The brand's "no markdown" strategy backfired, and word on the street is that employee morale has hit an all-time low at the company's Plano, Texas headquarters. 

However, the company had a moment during the Oscars broadcast. The new campaign, a series of commercials introducing JCP’s latest brand partnerships expanded on last year's rebranding campaign with Ellen DeGeneres. It also boosted activity on Facebook and Twitter, rewarding some followers with gift certificates.

Now, with the success of shop-in-shop brands like Sephora, MNG by Mango, Levi's Denim Bar and Liz Claiborne, the retailer is adding more designers to its in-store boutique lineup and plans to expand to home goods later this spring. Each brand will have their own design aesthetic within their individual shop.

With its in-store designer additions, J.C. Penney joins Target, Macy's (now battling JCP in court over Martha Stewart) and Bloomingdale's as the latest department store to experiment with boutique-style shops. In fact, JCP is stealing from Target's playbook with a new exclusive home goods collection by American architect Michael Graves—Target's first designer partnership, which launched in 1999 and produced a whopping 2,000 items—and Justin Timberlake's William Rast collection, which launched as a Target exclusive in 2010.

Other upcoming JCPenney designer collaborations include in-store boutiques for Happy Chic by Jonathan Adler, Designs by Conran, Watchgear by Tourneau, Carters and Giggles. Here's a look at the in-store boutiques now hitting its stores:Continue reading...

Many politicians, actors and sports stars have experienced an annus horribilis. But when it comes to corporate CEOs, few have ever had as bad a year as Ron Johnson of JCPenney.

It's been about a year since the former Apple retailing executive blew into Penney's headquarters in Dallas believing that he had a secret formula that would do even more than rescue the company from its threatened place in the nation's retailing industry. Eager to start a "retail revolution," Johnson sought to simplify the company's structure and re-program the American consumer's attitude toward store pricing, discounting and promotional tactics.

A year ago today, at a splashy two-day press event in New York, Johnson outlined his vision for transforming the 110-year-old department-store chain over four years through "Fair and Square" pricing as part of a rebranding and repositioning for the company. But it's not working.Continue reading...

Should brand fans be able to own a piece of their beloved brands, without any middlemen taking a cut? That's the premise of Loyal3, which offers consumers a Customer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP) where small amounts of stock can be bought directly from publicly traded companies via Facebook or a website. E.F. Hutton, are you listening? 

The pitch, on their website: “LOYAL3 is built on the simple and yet profound principle that people care more about things they own than things they don’t. We offer a revolutionary web and social media platform that enables public companies to sell their stock directly to customers from their Facebook page or website in just 3 clicks, creating more loyal customers.”

As Reuters notes, users can invest from $10 to a maximum of $2,500 per company per month. By leveraging consumer devotion for companies planning to go public, Loyal3 acts as broker. "People love Target and Coke," says Barry Schneider, CEO of Loyal3. "Why aren't more of them owners of those brands?"Continue reading...

It won't come as news to the millions of Americans who go to humanity-choked Apple stores and try to find a blue-shirted staff member who might be unoccupied, but Apple's outlets are the most productive retail real estate in the United States, according to new research.

Now if its former retail guru Ron Johnson could finally just figure out how to apply some of the Apple shine to JCPenney, where he is the increasingly beleaguered CEO after having left Apple as head of its retail stores a little over a year ago.

Apple's store productivity has soared in recent years as consumers have flocked to buy iPhones and iPads, reports the Financial Times. As a result, Apple recorded sales per square foot of retail space of $6,050 in the year ended in June, putting it ahead of all other contenders, including No. 2 Tiffany & Co. and No. 3 Lululemon Athletica, according to data from Retail Sales. But even Tiffany finished a distant runner-up, with sales of $3,017 per foot.Continue reading...

For too long, JCPenney traffic and sales were boosted by coupons that customers clipped and used in-store. When CEO Ron Johnson took over in November of last year, he promised that he would stop using coupons and make the new "jcp" a place of everyday savings, where customers would come if they knew that prices were low every day. So the company ditched coupons altogether back in February.

It turned out, however, that no coupons took a bite out of the bottom line, so the beleaguered Johnson emailed customers to say they shouldn’t have to wait around for sales, to so please enjoy a $10 “gift” to use before Nov. 4. That gift, to many, smacked of a coupon, but the store positioned it as more of an uncoupon.

A spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that it wasn’t a coupon: "This invitation is in no way a reflection of a departure from our fair and square everyday low price." Call it what you want, but the hope is clearly to get some bodies into the stores and pick up some sales before the holiday season hits.

Another idea put forth by Johnson, who used to work for Apple and helped to conceive their retail stores and Genius Bars, was to create mini-stores with pop-up boutiques for such brands as Levi’s, Sephora, and Liz Claiborne. At least one of them is feeling good about it.Continue reading...

When big retailers crash and burn, it seems they do so with style. The trials and tribulations of Sears/Kmart, despite its stylish moves into the fashion world, have been chronic and ongoing. Equally precarious these days is the fate of JCPenney.

In June, JCPenney brand president Michael Francis exited the troubled retailer after less than a year, in a shakeup that was seen as his taking the fall for CEO Ron Johnson. Francis, a former Target exec, along with Johnson, who formerly ran Apple's stores, couldn't combine their top shelf retail experience to effect a turnaround. On the contrary, the company's "fair and square pricing" (with the new logo at right to support the concept) essentially ditched sales and moved to Walmart-like "everyday low" pricing and twice-monthly clearance events. It was anything but successful. In fact, this lead balloon is now being replaced with a return to the more common retail strategy of a "sale."

Is it too little too late? The strapped J. C. Penney Company is cutting 350 jobs in its headquarters and selling part of its stake in Simon Property Group, a major mall developer, to raise $248 million in cash. Even so, the company is trying its darndest to crawl its way back into being a legitimate retail competitor, and that's where fashion comes in.Continue reading...

Lynx is promoting Lynx Attract, its first fragrance for men and women, in the UK with an action-packed new commercial and a Twitter hashtag, #UnleashTheChaos.

The Unilever-owned brand, which launched in France as Axe in 1983, launched its fallen angels campaign for Lynx Excite a year ago in the UK. It's also known as Axe in the US, where Unilever is promoting its version of the unisex fragrance, called Axe Anarchy, with an interactive comic book and a US version of this commercial.

Curve, a Liz Claiborne-produced fragrance distributed by Elizabeth Arden, is also promoting Curve Appeal, its unisex fragrance, in a new campaign featuring reality TV star Audrina Partridge and actor Kevin Zegers.Continue reading...

The Liz Claiborne brand name was sold in November to J.C. Penney so it was inevitable that its parent company, Liz Claiborne Inc., would shed the brand from its name. The inevitable is now official. The 34-year-old fashion company is changing its name to Fifth & Pacific Companies, and will start trading under the ticker symbol FNP in mid-May, in addition to replacing its zippy liz.com corporate domain with fifthandpacific.com.

Claiborne unloaded its Mexx brand in September and then sold its namesake brand to J.C. Penney, along with its Monet brand, two months later for $267.5 million. It also got rid of its Kensie and Dana Buchman brands this fall as it attempted to right its own financial ship. Now FNP is left with three core brands in Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand, Kate Spade, and a sibling in the mens fashion/accessory brand of Jack Spade line, to focus on.

The new corporate identity may recall Gap's Forth & Towne, Gilt's Park & Bond, and Nordstrom's Treasure & Bond, but CEO William McComb argues that the name is a perfect synthesis of the east coast/west coast stable of brands, as it's "where California cool meets New York chic."Continue reading...