11500: Two Cents On JCPenney.

Advertising Age reported more details on the JCPenney account reassignment to Doner, EVB and Victors & Spoils. MultiCultClassics originally commented that the trio of terrible shops looked like participants on AMC series The Pitch. Turns out the competition actually resembled the reality TV show, as the exclusive review lasted only three weeks. Three-month-old JCPenney SVP-Marketing Debra Berman booted six-month-old AOR Y&R after deciding the agency’s 2013 holiday marketing plan was not “sufficient to build the relationship we want to with our customers.” Merry Christmas, Y&R. Meanwhile, Omnicom’s EVB and Havas’ Victors & Spoils teamed up to win social and grassroots marketing assignments. In other words, pseudo thought leader John Winsor needed to bolster his mystical crowd of freelancers with a mediocre digital shop—and he ultimately got beat by Doner, a traditional advertising agency dinosaur. Of course, there was no mention of minority shops in the mix. Heaven forbid non-Whites might comprise a sizable portion of JCPenney’s audience. Berman and her new agencies recognize the challenge ahead demands staging a major turnaround. Seems as if everyone involved could use a total professional makeover.