Bob CollinsTarget Corporation lost its marketing boss to rival JC Penney today. Judging by the latest marketing gaffe by Penney, he best get there soon.
Michael Francis was marketing chief for the last 10 years, and, according to the Dow Jones News Service, “joins Penney at a time the retailer, like others, needs sharp marketing skills for the holiday season.”
The announcement comes after this ad finished its run for his new company:
That ad comes a few weeks after JC Penney tried to market a sweatshirt that said “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.”
The AdFreak blog says JC Penney has issued the non-apology apology:
Now, there’s this dirty-old-man ad, clearly aimed at guys who remember the iconic stoner flick and might have replayed that Cates scene in their heads a million times. That was almost 30 years ago. Using the pubescent Cates now is not only weird and random, it’s just plain pervy. What, wasn’t Gisele available? (Responding to one complaint on Facebook, JCPenney wrote: “We apologize that our advertising offended you. That certainly was not our intention. We have confirmed with our Marketing team that this particular ad campaign is scheduled to conclude at the end of [September] with no plans to re-air. Additionally, we have forwarded your comments to our Marketing team for consideration as they develop future advertising campaigns.”)
During Francis’ time at Target, according to Ad Age, “he has overseen some of Target’s best known ad campaigns such as Design for All and Hello Goodbuy, as well as the marketing of designer partnerships with Michael Graves, Liberty of London and, most recently, Missoni.”
