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JC Penney, you're a bit too old for the club
So, JC Penney's new back-to-school campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi has been out for a little while, and the whole thing is ripped right from The Breakfast Club (the nicer word for rip-off is “homage”). The major differences: a little more ethnicity and a new version of “Don’t You (Forget About Me).” I was 3 years old when The Breakfast Club came out in 1985. I didn’t know the film existed until I was in college, where it was included in a class on culturally significant movies for Gen X. Now, there’s more or less a decade separating me from today’s incoming high-school students. Does anyone really think they will get the reference? Hey, JC Penney, remember that scene in The Office where Steve Carell goes to this club and starts talking to this chick who is, like, way younger than him? Steve says Back to the Future (also ’85) is his favorite movie, and she says, “I guess that was before my time. How old are you again?” Congratulations, JC Penney, you’re now the old dude in the club. Maybe you’ll have an impact with the parents of some of those high-school kids. Better hope the kids actually want to shop where their parents suggest. —Posted by Rebecca Cullers |
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The Redsox revolution has begun lol
Posted by: unitedadmedia.com | Jul 24, 2008 11:04:43 AM
I love the breakfast club it is an awesome movie, but the JC Penny rip off made me cringe. It was just awful. It wasn't funny or that entertaining, it was just bad.
Posted by: Jane Sample | Jul 24, 2008 11:06:35 AM
Have you seen the poster for "American Teen?" It's almost an exact copy of the one used for "The Breakfast Club."
Posted by: Herb | Jul 24, 2008 11:42:11 AM
Yes. Great movie. But this has to be one of the most idiotically anachronistic move an agency/marketer could have made. It is a total disconnect with the people they are trying to reach. Sure, the movies speaks to teens but it speaks to mid-eighties teens! That's over 20 fucking years ago!
I'd like to know who at Saathchi actually thought this was a good idea. I'd love to hear the rationale behind it. I can't believe the client went for it. I mean just do the math as you did Rebecca. It's totally stupid. Even I, someone archaically old enough to have seen the movie as a teen. It was most certainly relevant to me at the time. But to a teen of today. No way. Total FAIL.
Posted by: Steve Hall | Jul 24, 2008 11:49:47 AM
Without commenting on the quality of the work, I can see the rationale for paying homage to this movie.
Rebecca, you even gave the rationale at the end of your critique. Rather than spell it out to you, I'll let you figure it out for yourself.
The work may not be good, but I'm guessing it answers the brief. So, while the creative isn't great, the strategy isn't off.
Posted by: Whome? | Jul 24, 2008 12:07:41 PM
I saw this ad in a movie theater pre-previews and the crowd BOOed it! I think people are really protective of certain cultural things, this being one of them. Target got away with tampering with the Beatles ("you say hello, I say good-BUY"). Although they didn't have 12 year olds in Sgt.. Pepper costumes.
Posted by: Brynn Malek | Jul 24, 2008 12:43:17 PM
What a great post! Some really clueless person totally out of touch obviously headed up that campaign. They don't know their customers, or who the customers are that they are trying to get! That scene from the office...classic! Thanks for the good lunch time read.
Posted by: Leah McChesney | Jul 24, 2008 12:44:25 PM
I think the reason this commercial was made is that currently teenagers love the 80's. All of the teen stores are marketing retro clothes. There were 6 teen girl in my starbucks last night dressed in acid washed jeans, with side ponytails, neon shirts, bangle bracelets, all sort of stuff that anyone who lived through the 80's finds grotesque. It's just like the 12 year old kids wearing Ramones T shirts.
Posted by: Becca | Jul 24, 2008 12:45:15 PM
The spot is off target, but it does have one thing going for it. I totally get it, while all the 13 year-olds in the room are utterly confused. VICTORY!
adhack
Posted by: adhack | Jul 24, 2008 2:00:38 PM
i used to work with those creatives and they're talented...and david lachapelle??? this spot reeks of the client getting in the way.
Posted by: melanie | Jul 24, 2008 2:25:44 PM
This is actually targeted at the parents of high school kids. So the reference is a perfect fit.
Posted by: david | Jul 24, 2008 2:35:51 PM
I watched this in horror. Who out there wants to see their favorite movie turned into a piece of corporate propaganda?
What was so great about the Breakfast Club was that it was about celebrating different types of people from different backgrounds forced to be together. The jocks, the preppies, the greese monkeys, the weirdos, the nerds, etc. But all I see here are a bunch of JC Penny models hanging out together. Where's the awkward nerd? Or the white-trash biker? I can hear the client saying, "Well they would never shop at JC PENNY." In the end, you have a horrible homogenized version of something that was once unique.
Posted by: stop it | Jul 24, 2008 5:24:49 PM
I was 16 when the movie came out. I almost vomited when I saw the commercial for the first time. Seriously.
Posted by: Eric | Jul 25, 2008 12:18:54 PM
Thanks Rebecca, for making me feel so goddamned prehistoric.
Posted by: Dabitch | Jul 25, 2008 7:56:28 PM
you're right. the kids are not going to get it. and for those of us who do, it's actually offensive. this was a sacred movie for me, one that i (and other Gen Xers) consider a classic. to blatantly rip it off, plug-in models and let the hijinks ensue is a slap in the face. while i have shopped at jc penney from time to time, i will never again walk through their doors.
and yes, i've seen that the eighties are back. and that makes me want to puke a little, too.
Posted by: this sucks | Jul 25, 2008 8:04:12 PM
I first saw the ad before a screening of Mamma Mia, which led me to think that the ad was actually targeting 80s teens who are now the parents of tweens/teens.
Posted by: StinkyLulu | Jul 30, 2008 10:40:51 AM
As a junior high teacher I can tell you that most of my students HAVE seen "The Breakfast Club" as I did way back when. They get the reference. And of course their parents do - who take them to shop and who pay the bills. I think the ad is targeted correctly.
Posted by: sue | Aug 19, 2008 9:36:39 PM
I sort of agree that the ad might hit with Gen-X parents of some of the kids going back to high school, as the last two lines suggest. But I see two problems with that. 1, is that Gen-X is known to have issues with the commercialization its sacred cultural stuff- like some of the posters are pointing out – there’s a revulsion to using their youth in such a fashion. And part 2, is that for the rest of the Gen-Xers who LIKE the reference, I don’t think that will make their kids want to go to the store their parents want to go to. Anyplace your parents actually want to buy clothes is automatically un-cool.
Posted by: Rebecca Cullers | Aug 20, 2008 2:48:41 PM
