It’s no secret that J.C. Penney has been losing customers over the past year.
The company hired Apple exec Ron Johnson as CEO and began turning the department store pricing model on its head. Instead of setting high prices with constant sales and coupons, the company instead decided to price its clothing at moderate to low prices and ditch the coupons. The strategy was a disaster, and J.C. Penney now finds itself with an estimated $3.5 billion in debt.
Even though the company has ousted Ron Johnson and received billions in loans, the company has a long way to go to rebuild its image with customers. To that end, J.C. Penney this week released a new ad that is an explicit apology to customers who have abandoned the store.
The ad, titled “It’s No Secret,” admits that J.C. Penney “changed” recently. It goes on to state that the company has learned from its mistakes, and will now be listening to its customers. It explicitly asks customers to “come back to J.C. Penney.”
J.C. Penney also appears to be engaging with customers quite a bit more on social network sites such as YouTube and Facebook. The store is acknowledging customer complaints and revealing information such as the fact that the St. John’s Bay brand will be coming back to J.C. Penney stores.