We put our name on it

“We’re so proud of that brand, we put our name on it.” So says JC Penney about it’s new line. Or is it JCP? Doe anyone care? The problem is that this isn’t Abercrombie or Uniqlo or J. Crew. It’s Penney’s.

JCP failed on two fronts, here. First, generic brand speak is DOA. Marketers so reflexively turn to it when they talk about their company that consumers tune out. That’s true for taglines, for descriptions, and for advertising. Brand speak says nothing. Forget talking about timeless memories captured in an editorial style. Humans don’t talk that way. Business owners creating copy for magazine blurbs do. That’s not who you want to be. There is no greater benefit of running your own business than the fact that you get to make it personal.

But the bigger and more important lesson is that no one is going to buy into this. Really? Does anyone even want JCP as a label? It would be like me endorsing a presidential candidate. So what? Who cares? Maybe BMW can talk about what it means to have their label on something. But not JCP. It’s no surprise sales have plummeted this year. Not only have they confused their existing user base, but they’ve found no new base to replace them.

Spin only works if people buy into it. Look at Target. At one time, if they came out and said “We’re so proud of our toasters, we put our name on it,” they would have been laughed out of the market. They didn’t. They took what they had – being cheap and accessible with some good looking ads – and they fortified their existing position with great design and style.

They key is understanding what you have that works and playing on it. It’s tempting to get lost in the buzzwords and the notion of what you’d like to be. That gets you nowhere. But everyone has things going for them. Find these things and build your business around them.