Readers of the East Valley Tribune and The Arizona Republic may notice a lot less presence of JC Penney store ads in the respective newspapers.
That is because JCP (the new preferred name by its new CEO) shifted most of its advertising dollars from newspapers effective the beginning of this year. The shifted dollars went to TV, social media and websites. At the same time, Penney’s moved from doing nearly 600 sales each year to a strategy of lower everyday prices and then some special pricing a couple of Fridays every month.
How has that worked out so far?
“Turns out, American shoppers don’t prefer predictable pricing over blockbuster bargains,” reported an Associated Press story this past week.
JC Penney lost $163 million in the three months that ended April 28. That changed from a positive profit of $64 million in that period a year ago, AP reports. Ouch.
I love JC Penney. I want them to do well. But at least part of the problem is that they have largely turned their back on their core shoppers that were used to seeing Penney’s advertising flyers in newspapers each week.
We are doing all we can to convince Penney’s to re-energize their investment in newspapers so that they can effectively speak to their core market. It is pretty obvious from the results that the strategy of moving those dollars to TV, social media and web ads hasn’t worked so well.
Kohl’s, Sears, Target, Best Buy, Staples, Century Link, Big 5, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Sports Authority, Radio Shack, Safeway, Basha’s, Fry’s, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Office Max, Kmart, Bass Pro Shops, Toys R Us, Walgreens, CVS, Jo-Anns Fabrics, Stein Mart, Michaels, ED Marshall, Fort McDowell Casino, Maricopa Community Colleges (to name a few) and scores of car dealers and Realtors in Maricopa County spend their money with the Republic and the Tribune because they effectively reach their targeted markets and get a great return on investment.
So has JC Penney for most of its history. It has been one of the most successful users of the medium. Walking away nearly cold turkey could be fatal. We hope not. We want their business and we want them to thrive. And we think our readers want that also.
I suggest you drop by a JC Penney store this week. And while you are there I hope you let Penney’s know that you miss its sale ads in the Tribune.
Some quick hits of interesting or useful information:
• A Mesa husband and wife have won the couples category in an international weight-loss contest. Don and Laura Jo Richins lost a total of 53 pounds during FreeLife International’s TAIslim 90 Day Challenge, according to that organization in a news release. The Mesa parents of five will join other TAIslim Challenge champions May 17-20 for an all-expense-paid luxury makeover vacation in Scottsdale.
• Did you know that 50 percent of the world’s population is now under 30 years old? And that 96 percent of the so-called millennial generation have joined a social network. That explains why Facebook grew to 800 million users so fast. It doesn’t explain why my wife spends so much time on Facebook. Of course, she would counter with something about my fantasy baseball and fantasy football Web time.
• The Tribune was given the secret time to have a photographer at the new Gilbert Mormon Temple for placement of the Moroni golden statute onto the new structure. It is an important religious symbol for the church. The Tribune had to promise not to write about it in advance or tell anybody about the event because organizers didn’t want a big crowd. We kept our traps shut but the word got out and a big crowd witnessed the event Tuesday. How did it get out? No one knows but it was all over some East Valley Facebook pages the day before the “secret” project took place.
• Did you know that 87 percent of all teens send text messages? And the average teen sends 3,339 texts per month.
• My favorite smoothie place near my home has a new owner. Douglas and Karleen Gardiner bought the Tropical Smoothie Café at Warner and Priest in Tempe. There are also two Tropical Smoothie Café locations in Mesa (not under their ownership). I met them this week. Douglas Gardiner is a family law attorney with Davis, Miles, McGuire, Gardner in Tempe. His wife has been raising their three boys and has a geology degree but was at the front counter when I last visited the store. I’m pretty sure that the geology degree wasn’t required to run a smoothie store. Nonetheless, the smoothies are good. The owners are cool.
Terry Horne is publisher and editor of the East Valley Tribune and general manager of 1013 Communications Arizona, which also includes the Daily News-Sun in Sun City, the Ahwatukee Foothills News, Arizona Interactive Media, The Explorer in Tucson, Glendale-Peoria Today and Surprise Today.
DrJCA1 posted at 8:37 pm on Thu, May 17, 2012.
Texting by teens is one more nail in the coffin of stupidity. We are seeing kids as young as 14 in the ER's with repetitive trauma to their thumbs from so much texting. They will have arthritis when they get into their 20s or 30s and will wish the heck they never heard of texting. Parents need to be be aware of this problem and put limits on their children's usage of cell phones. By the way, worldwide studies are already showing increased numbers of tumors in the face, head, and neck of people who have spent lots of time on cell phones over the past decade.
Arizona Willie posted at 11:37 am on Fri, May 18, 2012.
DrJ ... it's just like the people who claim their is no proof of climate change as they watch videos of glaciers melting and ice fields shrinking at both the North and South poles.
The cell phone people are in the same category because they keep denying there is any proof. They don't accept factual numbers of things like the tumors you are talking about.
It's always about money.
It would cut into profits to do anything about the effects of industry on our climate and it would cut into profits to stop the cell phone industry or put any restrictions on it ... such as putting devices in cars to prevent cell phones from working while the vehicle is in motion.
People are replaceable... there's more born every minute.
Profits lost can never be recovered.
Follow the money.
Money wins --- ALWAYS.
sockratties posted at 12:15 pm on Fri, May 18, 2012.
Advertise in a newspaper? Unless someone has birdcages there is no need for newsprint. I can get today's news now, and I don't have to scrape it out from under my car with a broom handle to read about what happened yesterday.
Just as in the on-line East Valley Tribune the quality of writing, editing and reporting has hit a new low. It seems the editors don't even have a spell checker. When I read an item in the EVT I usually have to follow up, on-line, to get details. The job of "reporting" seems to be grabbing the story off the news-wire and printing it as is. Local stories are nothing but press releases with no perspective and no follow-up.
VofReason posted at 12:58 pm on Fri, May 18, 2012.
Yes AZ Willie, problems with texting are just like that of global warming. Except one is fact and one is fiction. Though there is one point of similarity, Al Gore created both the internet and global warming- sort of. Another thing he may want to know, there was something called the ice age where most of the globe was frozen. Then it melted. There was no SUVs, factories or any of the rest. Maybe things like that just happen.
VofReason posted at 1:00 pm on Fri, May 18, 2012.
Or maybe Willie is right. Maybe we should throw a bunch of money at untested technology and quit driving and see if that does something beside grinding the free world to a hault.
sockratties posted at 1:08 pm on Fri, May 18, 2012.
Maybe the problem JCP is having relates to the short attention span of the readers, like the readers in this column.
mnjcpa posted at 8:48 am on Sat, May 19, 2012.
I'll stick with JCP's CEO strategies. What you didn't mention is that he came from Apple as Sr. VP of retail & since Apple has market cap that they do - I would give him a bit to let the strategy take hold.
Newspapers & major network news organizations don't get it that the majority of the the population do not share their liberal views. NBC doctors 911 tapes to fit a racial narrative. And the AZRepublic continues to go down in circulation - yet they refuse to cut loose liberals like Benson & Montini. I quit my subscription 5 years ago. I grew up admiring journalists and newspapers. Now I see that they cling to political views out of touch and most times untrue and supporting the liberal narrative.
No doubt the Internet has dessimated your business model. But just like in any business, when changes come you modify. Just like the JCP'S business model - gIve it another year & check in with the results.