Your basic point I agree with; I disagree with where you seem to place the line between bad and good.
Bad press: JCPenney funds Al Queda, kills babies, assassinates U.S president, and rapes your mother (or her corpse).
Not so bad: Anything else, including JCPenney has annoying TV ad (speaking of which, news flash – politicians lie, government agencies have unpleasant bureaucracies!). As long as people aren’t genuinely inspired to burn them at the stake, getting the name out there typically increases sales.
To wit:
The great majority are going to remember the name JCPenney, if only vaguely. Virtually no one is going to remember “annoying ad.”
The JC Penney screaming commercial is easily the most annoying and ridiculous commercial I have ever had to watch. I am grateful that I have a mute button on my remote and I can’t get to it fast enough when this stupid commercial starts. I am embarrassed to be of the same species as the morons responsible for putting such garbage on TV. My JC Penney’s credit card had been destroyed and I will NEVER step foot in the place again. Anyone that has anything to do with getting this commercial on the TV should be standing in the unemployment line.
Wow, I’ve gotten jaded enough that I didn’t expect one with any real substance, so I hadn’t checked. But I did hear from them:
*We’re very sorry that you are unhappy with our new commercials. We hope you stick with us and let us show you how we plan to keep providing you with great value and stylish options. We’re launching an exciting new strategy on February 1st. Your opinions mean a lot to us and I hope you will visit jcpenney after Feb. 1st when we’ll be happy to tell you more.
Customers like you are our most valuable resource for creating the optimal shopping experience. Thanks again for your email. We look forward to serving you in the future.
Colby,
Corporate Customer Services*
Uh, Colby? If you’re unfamiliar with the word “boycott”, it means it’s pointless for you to tell me to “visit jcpenney after Feb. 1st”.
And, I’m assuming your hair is the color of Colby cheese. Is this correct?
ps: If they bring back “Wassssssup!” I’ll do this all over again.
I had already emailed JCP, before I located this forum. Many have posted that it was easier to mute the volume when this offensive commercial comes on, and for someone with the ability and/or dexterity to do so, this seems like a simple answer. I assist several gentle souls who do not have this option. They no longer look forward to watching favorite programs and choose instead, to turn their TVs off. The anxiety they suffer when these ads are played, is genuine and severe. A couple of the ladies have stated that they will never buy anything from JCP again. I will continue to contact whoever I can, in an effort to stop this outrageous screaming fiasco that is often played back to back.
Actually, while JCP was in pretty bad shape 10-15 years ago, in recent years, ISTR that they haven’t been doing too badly. They changed their product line-up (particularly in apparel), and have actually been fairly popular with younger consumers.
My girlfriend loves jcp but I never have. These ads reaffirmed my faith in Kohl’s. But I wouldn’t put too much stock in my opinion since I do most of my shopping at Old Navy and their ads are dreadful.
Colby, if he exists, does not care. JCPenny also does not care as they have shittons of market research that tells them the few cranks who write letters about their commercials mean fuck-all to their bottom line.
guizot, while I agree with you about people’s attitudes to commercials in general, I feel I must state that, in my opinion, at least, commercials on the whole are too damn loud. I find myself scrabbling for the remote to turn the volume down by 3 or 4 notches every time a show goes to commercials and then I lose the first few seconds of dialogue when the show comes back unless a musical stinger clues me in that the adbreak is over.
Even inside shows, I find the volume between ambient noise and dialogue to be distracting with environmental sounds overpowering speech audio. I heartily wish that I could equalize volume across the board and pump just the dialogue.
I have received replies to the email complaints I sent to the JCP “Powers That Be”, yesterday evening. They are “Sorry to hear that I do not like their new commercial”, but are inviting me to check out the new way of selling merchandise, that they will be introducing at the beginning of February. This is some type of form letter that will be mass generated, no doubt. This corporate smug-ness only highlights the current idea that today’s consumer is not important to them. It is a matter of numbers, and for every person who is bothered by corporate insensitivity, there are five others who are willing to “allow” corporate bullies to continue. The days of “The customer is always right” are gone… We should pay extra attention to the warning of “Buyer Beware”, because we seem to be unimportant now… I don’t get it!
I’ll confess, I think the commercial is hilarious, one woman in particular cracks me up with her facial expression. And I can relate to it because I feel like my mailbox has become little more than a trash receptacle for the million ads and fliers I get each week.
I was also surprised because I didn’t realize anyone actually shopped at JcPenney’s anymore.
I haven’t been in a JCP in probably 10 years. The one near us was always messy with horrible service and had a funky smell. I remember them being along the same lines as Kohls as far as basic quality, decent prices. Our Kohls is generally very neat, has good service and doesn’t smell weird. So no contest there.
Saw the commercial for the first time today. I loved the “72% off - yesterday only!” sign, but muted the commercial.
Thank you. I hate this commercial. It’s obnoxious and doesn’t even tell you what it’s about. But I refuse to go to the website to find out (but this thread informed me). I almost wish I was a JCP customer, just so I could stop shopping there. It’s pretty much tied with the “I want my money NOW” commercial in horribleness. And not in the nice NPH way.
Until this thread I had no idea what this ad was for. I had heard it a few times, but never looked up to see what the ad was actually for. The next time it was on I actually paid attention. The ad doesn’t say much, but, I guess that’s the point.
I’m kind of interested to seeing what these new JC Pennys are going to look like. The fact that Rob Johnson helped build the Apple Stores has given them some free hype. The company will be able to live off that free advertising and hype for a couple of months. But, if this whole 100 mini stores idea turns out to be a flop it’s going to be a short tenure and then back to the old way of doing things. Still, I always find it interesting when businesses try something different.
It’s a crappy commercial, but no worse than any other crappy commercial (I’m looking at you Quiznos spongmonkeys c. wheneverthehell that was). I don’t give a damn about a stupid advertisement as long as the store delivers what I want/need for a reasonable price. (OK, I could think of political/ethical reasons to avoid a store, but not one that simply boils down to “their commercial annoyed me.”) JCP is fine by me.
Besides the constant airplay, the thing that makes it particularly horrible is that a bunch of people suddenly start screaming at the top of their lungs. It’s quite unsettling. It’s similar to the feeling you get when showing a vacation video to your parents and suddenly a hard core porno cuts in for no reason.
I find it annoying in the it’s really freaking loud for a long time annoying. I also hate it because no one would ever be that upset upon discovering that they paid full price for something that later went on sale. In that way it’s stupid just like this stupid commercial I used to see for some video game rental outfit that showed people breaking down emotionally upon realizing they’d just wasted some bucks on what turned out to be a bad video game.