I’ve talked endlessly about product marketing with a customer focus. For a reason. If your product marketing makes your prospects indifferent, or even worse alienates them, you don’t make money.

J. C. Penney learned this the hard way when it brought in new leadership a decade ago.

“J.C. Penney brought in a bold new CEO. Ron Johnson had already created Apple Store, a chain of physical stores where people flocked to shop.”

I will state the obvious: the clientele at an Apple Store differs ever-so-slightly from J. C. Penney customers. But to be fair, Johnson had also worked at Target.

Yet Johnson’s first move was more suited to people whose idea of a bar included one preceded by the word “genius.”

“And Johnson had a plan for J.C. Penney: Tell customers they don’t have to spend time anymore clipping coupons or waiting for sales to happen. Instead, the store would offer fair prices on its merchandise every day.”

Logically it sounds brilliant. Customers can save time and money simultaneously.

The only problem is that the customers LIKED clipping coupons and timing purchases to sales.

And when revenue decreased, J. C. Penney…BLAMED THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS. In a way that got attention.

“’He sort of said sales were akin to drugs, and he was trying hard and to wean customers off drugs,’ says retail analyst Rafi Mohammed.”

Or, as one of those long Facebook posts over-exaggerated it, Ron Johnson called his own customers drug addicts.

J. C. Penney not only walked back the changes, but also fired Johnson sixteen months later.

It’s good to attract new customers…but don’t alienate existing ones.

Now Bredemarket normally plays in the B2G and B2B space rather than B2C, but the lesson applies here also. If you need someone to help you speak to your prospects, let’s talk.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

And by the way, there are often third acts in business. Johnson co-founded Enjoy, an on-demand mobile retail store. It did well for years until it jumped in on the SPAC craze and filed for bankruptcy. The remnants survive today as part of Asurion.

J. C. Penney also survives today, thanks to a post-COVID, post-bankruptcy rescue by mall operators Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management.

Its competitor Sears was not as fortunate.