Comments

1. martin butler says at 22/02/2011 at 4:56 pm

   Winston… I sit on the expert judging panel of the World Retail Congress and was recently asked to judge advertising & marketing entries. The ubiquitous USA department store group JC Penney went on to win the digital category with ‘Beware of the Doghouse’. Fundamentally they came up with some fabulous lateral thinking culminating in a simple idea. People who had bought so-called ‘bad gifts’ were consigned to a doghouse. An incredibly engaging website was created where dissatisfied recipients of gifts were encouraged to send ‘significant others’ to the JC Penney doghouse. The only way out was to start giving good gifts. Exiting the dog house wasn’t easy – often involving harsh subjective reasoning. But jewelry from JC Penney was a sure-fire winning method. Having worked on many department store accounts, I know just how hard it is to own the gifting sector at competitive times of year and what particularly impressed me was the simplicity of thought disguising really complex, emotional insights. It was executed beautifully with a viral campaign complete with click-through links to the social network sites. This was a hugely successful and simple idea loaded with nuance, demanding ownership from every Associate in the business. I am glad the other judges agreed with me on its quality.