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Case 6-2
Tugging on Shoppers’ Heartstrings
J.C. Penney [http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/company/304768?u=tlearn_trl] and Wal-Mart
[http://bi.galegroup.com/essentials/company/309223?u=tlearn_trl] want shoppers to know how much they
care. Good prices and good selection are still important, but with so many choices on the street and on the
Web, retailers really have to fight for attention in today’s crowded marketplace. This reason explains why
Penney’s and Wal-Mart are using marketing communications to build an emotional connection with
consumers.
“Everybody out there is doing product-focused advertising,” explains J.C. Penney’s chief marketing
officer. “What we learned is that no matter how well you do that, it does not break through the clutter.”
So the department store’s advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, tried something a little different. Its
employees spent several days tagging along with more than 50 women to learn firsthand what these
consumers were doing, thinking, and feeling as they went about their daily lives.
What emerged from this research was a communications focus on consumers, exemplified by the
advertising slogan “Every day matters.” In line with this slogan, the agency created a series of touching,
dialogue-free commercials featuring brief but moving glimpses of moments from daily life. Each
commercial was set to a song with intriguing lyrics and unfolded without sponsor identification until the
final seconds.
The first commercial in the campaign showed a young couple and their two children getting ready for
the day, with a hint of gift-giving in the sparkle of diamond jewelry passing from husband to wife. The
commercial had no voice-over, a situation that freed viewers to focus their attention on the heartwarming
visuals and enjoy the catchy song, “So Say I.” In one of the Christmas ads, parents and children walked
along snow-covered streets (and a diamond gift made a brief appearance) as the song “All That I Want”
played in the background. Viewers could not be sure what they were watching because Penney’s logo did
not appear until the very end of the commercial—and then only briefly. The entire campaign was
acclaimed for its creativity and use of music, many of the commercials wound up with thousands of
viewers on YouTube, and many of the songs became instant iTunes hits. Penney’s also posted a series of
online episodes on its website, hoping that teenagers would find the content amusing and pass the word to
their friends and classmates.
When this unusual campaign began, not everyone in the Penney’s organization was sure that it would
work. “Sometimes we run ads that we don’t totally understand, and they have been home runs with the
customer,” notes the chief marketing officer. In his view, “if you are doing the same old warmed-over
product-based stuff that everyone else is doing, you are wasting your money.”
Wal-Mart, best known for its discount prices, is also seeking more emotional bonds with its
customers. The yellow smiley-face that appeared in Wal-Mart’s communications for so many years is
now gone. Instead, the Martin Agency, which handles the retail giant’s advertising, is using
communications to drive home the benefit of what consumers can do with the money they save by
shopping at Wal-Mart, with this theme reflected in the retailer’s new slogan, “Save Money. Live Better.”
For instance, the company’s Christmas commercials portrayed Wal-Mart shoppers enjoying the
feeling of being able to give brand-name gifts to loved ones because of the store’s low prices. “It’s great
to save money, but the feeling you get giving the bike the kid wants is the payoff,” says Wal-Mart’s chief
marketing officer. In the end, he says moving away from a simple low-price message has been important
because the company has been “trying to make sure there is an emotional connection and not just an
empty promise of ‘Save, save, save.’”
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Case Questions
1. How is J.C. Penney using mood to influence consumers’ affective attitudes?
2. By withholding the sponsor’s name until the end of its commercials, J.C. Penney adds a sense of
mystery to its ads. Do you think this is a good approach for a retailer to take? Explain your answer by
using consumer behavior concepts from this chapter.
3. How is Wal-Mart seeking to influence consumers’ cognitive and affective attitudes with its new ads
and new slogan “Save Money. Live Better”?
