OVERALL GRADE: E
By a remarkable coincidence, J.C. Penney has been in
business 106 years, and their single About Us page has 106 words! We hope that the
J.C. Penney site is about to undergo a major upgrade ... because what’s there now
is sadly deficient. Given recent media hoopla over the firing of CEO Ron
Johnson, we were hoping to find a website that stressed the company’s long
heritage and presented this as a blip in the company’s illustrious history.
Personality: E
We are always happy to see the founder mentioned,
particularly when the company still bears his name, and sure enough he is
mentioned on the main About Us
page: “More than a century ago, James Cash Penney founded his company on the
principle of the Golden Rule: treat others the way you’d like to be treated –
Fair and Square. His legacy continues to this day...”
And that’s it for history, corporate or otherwise. As befits
its lack of content, the link to the About Us page is buried in the footer. Need
we say that there’s no mention of when and where the original store was
established, or how quickly it expanded, or the move from downtown to suburban
malls, or remarkably early Internet sales? No mention of that big fat J.C.
Penney catalogue, whose arrival was a major event for those who grew up far
from either the neon lights of Broadway or suburban shopping malls?
There aren't even images of the old logos, which have a
nostalgic value of their own, like those of John
Deere that we mentioned in evaluating
the John Deere About Us pages. And how about Annual Reports? In
CorporateHistory.net's history
of The Pep Boys, another retailer with the same general demographic, the
timeline included thumbnails of each and every Annual Report. J.C. Penney could
similarly showcase its annuals or catalog covers.
People will go a long way for nostalgia: reminding them of why
they used to enjoy shopping at J.C. Penney would be a perfectly good way to
draw customers back. Unfortunately we felt more nostalgia while reading the Answers.com page
about J.C. Penney than we did on the company’s own site.
Products/Services: E
J.C. Penney has a long, rich history of selling tangible
goods: their archives must be tremendous. There’s not a smidgen of that on the
About Us page – not even photos of current products.
Accessibility: E
From the About Us page there’s nowhere to go but back: no
navigation menus top or bottom. For contact information, we had to go to the
footer of the home page, scan past offers of mobile updates, Twitter, Facebook,
and an app, and click on the ambiguously labeled View
All link. That finally took us to a page with various ways to contact the
company, including a link to an online form (sent to an anonymous person).
TAKEAWAY
When it comes to corporate memory, Penney’s seems to have
amnesia. Maybe the recently deposed CEO Ron Johnson wanted it that way, since
he fostered the cool, uncluttered, Apple Store approach – but that strategy
crashed and burned. Shoppers want the Penney’s they’ve known and loved, and
they deserve to find that corporate culture on Penney’s About Us pages as well
as in its stores.
So: Think of who you are and where you’ve been. Think of who
you’re trying to reach. An About Us page is a facet of marketing; pages such as
J.C. Penney’s are missed opportunities of mammoth size.
Does your Web site’s “About Us” section
accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks
we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential
customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for
us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). To talk about your About Us
page, contact us!
Today’s example was chosen at random;
CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.
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