GAWKER: That JC Penney commercial, which featured two teens practicing for a naked romp in the basement? The one that won a prize at the Cannes Lions Awards this weekend and spread quickly on the Web yesterday? It was an unauthorized fake, and executives at the department store are royally pissed. “It’s obviously inappropriate and nothing we would ever condone,” Penney’s chief marketing officer told the Wall Street Journal. “We’re very disappointed that our logo and brand position were used in that way.” Thus began the blame game over who unleashed this mutant sorta-sex tape, one that will seem oh-so-familiar to anyone who recalls, say, the Miley Cyrus incident with Vanity Fair. MORE
WALL STREET JOURNAL: While the ad could anger parents who shop at Penney, it also has the potential to make the retailer seem “sassy, fun and irreverent” to teens, said Alan Siegel, chief executive of New York strategic-branding company Siegel + Gale. “It’s not going to reflect well on the brand in Middle America, but the ad is nicely done and the people in it are attractive; young people in New York and L.A. will get a kick out of it,” he said. MORE