Newspaper Support Group

JC Penney is under new, focused leadership. CEO, Ron Johnson, is looking to translate his success creating Apple stores over to the tired department store world.

This is bad news for newspapers status quo, but very good news for those looking for innovation. JC Penney is about to lead other department stores away from the constant sales that have been their bread and butter for decades. We’re almost certainly going to see fewer newspaper inserts.

I wouldn’t be surprised to watch the other stores follow.

According to Ad Age:

“The strategy will trim JC Penney’s promotions to 12 a year from 590. In an homage to the promotional noise, presentation attendees walked down a hall plastered with old ads and circulars to the accompaniment of a raucous soundtrack that included a cat fight. Mr. Francis called it the “Hall of Hell.” Instead of spending $2 million per promotion, Mr. Johnson said, JC Penney will spend $80 million a month promoting all its products.”

That’s a reduction of about $220 million from their current budget and will require less space to let everyone know what will be on sale.

Newspapers need to be thinking not only about how they’ll capture this new money, but how they’re going to grab it all at once. Since the department store market (desperate for leadership) will likely follow suit, we see a big dip in department store spending plus a conscious and performance-based reallocation of advertising dollars in the coming year.