Macy's hopes star power lifts its profile
CINCINNATI -- Mogul Donald Trump blow-dries his distinctive hair and ditzy pop singer Jessica Simpson acts confused about whether to push or pull a Macy's door in a series of celebrity television ads this fall that Macy's hopes will revive sales at its 850 department stores.
The effort to woo shoppers to mall-based department stores, particularly the 400 stores once owned by May Department Stores, hinges on the appeal of products and brands backed by celebrities such as Trump, Simpson, Diddy, Usher and Martha Stewart.
Focusing on celebrities' brands has paid off in the past for Macy's and should pay off again, she says.
The new campaign has been reported to cost $100 million. Reardon denies it's that much.
It features 11 cultural icons and American entertainers and pokes fun at the celebrities. Martha fusses with many of the 2,000 Stewart-branded products now on Macy's shelves as Usher boasts to her about his two fragrances.
The campaign was launched during Sunday's Emmy Awards broadcast, just before the make-or-break holiday shopping season begins in October.
The blitz also comes at a critical time for Cincinnati-based Macy's, which also owns Bloomingdale's. It took a calculated risk in 2005 when it bought those May nameplates — venerable names such as Marshall Field's, Kaufmann's and Filene's — and replaced them with the Macy's brand a year later.
Macy's executives wanted to build a national retail brand that could benefit from economies of scale and coast-to-coast advertising initiatives. They figure they couldn't lose with one of the nation's most recognizable department store names. But in the markets that lost the local store names, shoppers responded with fewer visits. Sales at hundreds of stores went flat. The campaign is aimed at bringing back those shoppers.
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