JCPenney, seemingly a permanent fixture in the news these days, seeks to push past the negative financial and branding headlines and tap into customer experience with their new pop-up shops, which will hopefully garner appeal from designer collaborations. 

The store, which is currently embroiled in a high-stakes trial with Macy's and Martha Stewart over product licenses, has had a rough time since CEO Ron Johnson took over a year ago. The brand's "no markdown" strategy backfired, and word on the street is that employee morale has hit an all-time low at the company's Plano, Texas headquarters. 

However, the company had a moment during the Oscars broadcast. The new campaign, a series of commercials introducing JCP’s latest brand partnerships expanded on last year's rebranding campaign with Ellen DeGeneres. It also boosted activity on Facebook and Twitter, rewarding some followers with gift certificates.

Now, with the success of shop-in-shop brands like Sephora, MNG by Mango, Levi's Denim Bar and Liz Claiborne, the retailer is adding more designers to its in-store boutique lineup and plans to expand to home goods later this spring. Each brand will have their own design aesthetic within their individual shop.

With its in-store designer additions, J.C. Penney joins Target, Macy's (now battling JCP in court over Martha Stewart) and Bloomingdale's as the latest department store to experiment with boutique-style shops. In fact, JCP is stealing from Target's playbook with a new exclusive home goods collection by American architect Michael Graves—Target's first designer partnership, which launched in 1999 and produced a whopping 2,000 items—and Justin Timberlake's William Rast collection, which launched as a Target exclusive in 2010.

Other upcoming JCPenney designer collaborations include in-store boutiques for Happy Chic by Jonathan Adler, Designs by Conran, Watchgear by Tourneau, Carters and Giggles. Here's a look at the in-store boutiques now hitting its stores:Continue reading...

What started as a recession-beating tactic seems to have become ingrained in shoppers in the United States. They just can't get enough of store brands, aka generics or private label products.

A new study of 500 U.S. consumers conducted by the management consulting company Accenture shows that 64 percent of shoppers' grocery carts were at least half full of store brand products — and 39 percent said they've bought more store brands in recent years. This is in line with an April 2012 study conducted by Perception Research Services indicating that 38 percent of U.S. shoppers have bought more private label products than they did in 2010, with 86 percent of shoppers saying they purchase at least some store brands on a regular basis.

The rise of store brands has been a phenomenon typically associated with recessionary times, but in recent years, consumers have favored store brands for reasons other than price alone. Two-thirds of shoppers do indeed say they buy store brands because they are cheaper; according to the Accenture study, however, 50 percent of consumers surveyed buy store brand products because they perceive the quality to be just as good as the brand-name equivalent, and 42 percent say they buy private label products because they trust a particular store's brand.

Start throwing around terms like "quality" and "trust" and marketers of brand-name products become very nervous.Continue reading...

Walgreen Co, the largest drugstore company in the U.S., has gone transcontinental with its acquisition of a 45-percent stake in Boots, the U.K.-based drug-store giant, for $6.7 billion.

The two companies also are looking to a full merger in three years for further $9.5 billion, plus the assumption of Boots' then-outstanding debt. Combined they'll have 11,000 stores in 12 countries, prompting Walgreen's press release headline, "Walgreens and Alliance Boots Form Strategic Partnership to Create the First Global Pharmacy-Led, Health and Wellbeing Enterprise."

The deal represents another in a growing string of incursions by relatively healthy American companies into an ailing European economic scene, to the tune of about $43 billion overall so far this year. Alliance Boots Executive Chairman Stefano Pessina, meanwhile, has finally struck the big deal he was seeking in order to "transform" the business and future of becoming a global healthcare leader.Continue reading...

Tesco, the UK-based mega-retailer, is making headlines for actions that relate to its corporate citizenship stance.

For a start, the brand has decided to ditch its participation in an "eco-labeling" scheme which was aimed to calculate the carbon footprint of each product slapped with a "carbon-reduction" label provided by Carbon Trust. Despite disappointing eco-activists, Tesco said that it was too expensive and time-consuming to analyze each product's purported impact on carbon-dioxide emissions and was disappointed that other retailers hadn't followed its pioneering role in the program, which started in 2006 when the brand promised to start a "revolution in green consumption" and become carbon-neutral by 2050.

Not to be discouraged from do-gooding, Tesco has set up a not-for-profit organization to raise money for women's health charities in the UK that will be funded by sales of its new feminine-care line of products under its Halo private label. The "venture brand's" cheeky marketing campaign includes the tagline, "Halo protects women. No ifs. No butts." The campaign website includes a cheeky (pun intended) invitation to women to "show us your knickers." Feminists, start your (blog) engines!

It's also been in the news for its efforts to help get Britain's legions of unemployed youth working, with one online job posting leading to a firestorm in the British press.Continue reading...

Built on the back of its ubiquitous retail operation, Walmart has become the largest grocer in the U.S. That position carries with it a certain responsibility, and Walmart is rising to the occasion. The company, for example, has been publicly acknowledged by the first lady, Michelle Obama, for its work in helping to encourage healthy eating and fight childhood obesity.

As we noted here earlier, Walmart's latest entry into the nutritional battlefield is a product labeling strategy it calls "Great for You." As the company explains, this "nutrition icon" will begin appearing this spring on foods that "meet rigorous nutrition criteria informed by the latest nutrition science and authoritative guidance from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Institute of Medicine (IOM)."

At first, the green "Great for You" labels, depicting a non-descript person with arms raised, will appear only on products within Walmart's own brands, Great Value and Marketside. Walmart claims, however, that it will allow other brands to make use of the label on products adhering to the same criteria with no licensing fee. In theory, this would help level the playing field between Walmart branded products and other brands sitting on Walmart shelves. But does it?Continue reading...

The Food and Drug Administration said in 2009 that it was going to develop standards for what food products can claim to be healthy and what can’t. But there hasn’t been any kind of report as of yet, and Walmart has decided to stop waiting and make one of its own.

A year after pledging to develop a front-of-pack label that would give its customers an easier way to identify healthier food, and a month after a public commitment with First Lady Michelle Obama to putting nutrition front and center in its stores, the nation’s largest food retailer this week unveiled a “Great For You” icon to create a visual system to educate customers.

The Arkansas-based grocery behemoth announced this week that the seal will appear on a variety of house brand food items, with a WalmartGreatforYou.com website supporting the effort.

The green and white seal, "which shows the stylized outline of a human figure with its arms spread toward the sky, is part of a multiyear campaign the world’s largest retailer is undertaking to promote healthier products and fight childhood obesity," the Associated Press reports.

Walmart says it will adapt to whatever the FDA’s regulations are whenever that list actually is produced, but will for now add the icon to products with lower levels of fat, sugar, and artificial additives. Plus, the seal will appear on signage in the fruits and vegetable section of its grocery area.

“It helps customers see very, very quickly what healthier choices are for them,” stated Andrea Thomas, SVP of sustainability for Wal-Mart Stores. More details are in its press release below.Continue reading...

We've reported numerous times about the rise of the private label or store brand throughout the U.S. and worldwide. Fueled by economic conditions, store brands have increased in popularity, offering shoppers lower priced alternatives and causing concern for name brand marketers. More and more, private labels are taking on global appeal as stores grab a larger share of shelf space for their own brands.

Now the Land Down Under may become overwhelmed with private labels, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald. Already a hotbed of store brands, Australia could well be inundated by its two largest supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, who have both applied for hundreds of trademarks with the country's IP Australia, the government agency administering intellectual property rights.Continue reading...

Today, 24-hour news network CNN unveiled new branding for 2012 political campaign coverage. CNN's new motto states that its political coverage makes it "America's Choice 2012," a tagline that "reflects our commitment to helping American voters make that choice."

CNN is not joking. But Jon Stewart was when The Daily Show used the exact same branding in 2008.Continue reading...