Ellen DeGeneres hiring as JCPenney spokesperson draws anti-gay protest –
[Via Celebrity News - Digital Spy]
An anti-gay group has called on retail chain JCPenney to fire Ellen DeGeneres as its spokesperson.
DeGeneres was unveiled as the new face of JCPenney last week and the company’s president Michael Francis said at the time that the department store shares “the same fundamental values as Ellen”.
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Remember that the guy behind the Apple retail stores – Ron Johnson – has been CEO of JCPenny since June. He has already announced remaking over the entire store.
But here we have a wonderful example of smart marketing. Hiring Ellen is a great choice as she is a wonderful sporkeperson who connects with a large mainstream audience.
And she is ‘edgy’ not mainly because of being gay but because of the effect that has had on her career. Many people value Ellen because she fought back against these haters mostly on her own and recreated a successful career, remaking herself in the process by becoming something almost mundane.
Her life serves as a great model for remaking JCPenny and the protests simply resonate with their previous effects on Ellen herself 15 years ago.
And JCPenny now has a great advocate for their own changes. An advocate outside of standard commercials and ads.
The haters fell right into the role set by Johnson and JCPenny. Their hate took a standard PR announcement of a new spokesperson and elevated it to the main page of the news media. All for free.
Here she is announcing being hired by JCPenny, from January 25.
And here she is responding to the critics.
Of course JCPenny will keep her. You can not buy this sort of publicity and of the good kind. Compare with what Komen went through last week?
Komen was totally unprepared for what happened, did not respond coherently and eventually looked stupid to just about everyone.This controversy with JCPenny and the results did not just happen. The store knew exactly what was going to happen and had a well thought out plan to deal with it. Ellen knew this was going to come and was prepared for it.
Ellen’s performance was wonderful but it was not truly off the cuff. I think both she and JC Penny were expecting some sort of protest and actually welcomed it.
This is how you change a brand. JCPenny becomes edgier, they stand up to pressure and are courageous with their choices. They are now different than they used to be and will be a force to reckon with in the future
Genius
I would suggest that Ron Johnson is not only behind this but that the current episode is exactly what he wanted. I mean, even Bill O’Reilly is defending Ellen and JCPenny.
You know someone is genius when both Ellen and Bill fall on the same side.
Now a lot of people have heard about JCPenny’s changes but in a context that will have a lot of people look at them who might not have before.
The genius behind the Apple stores may just be genius enough to remake JCPenny. He is off to an interesting start.
