Branding

As you boarded your flight that day, perhaps you didn't realize you were in the market for a garden statue that looks like Bigfoot. But, as the plane doors close, you curse the FAA regulation that bans electronic devices from being used during takeoff and landing. How do you entertain yourself for these interminable 30 minutes? The in-flight magazine? The emergency safety instructions card? How about the SkyMall catalog? Yes, the SkyMall catalog will do.

J.C. Penney's new home department is like Technicolor Oz plunked down in black-and-white Kansas. Dreamed up by Ron Johnson before the former Apple retail wizard was ousted as chief executive officer in April, the housewares emporium, which opens this week, features vibrant colors, wood fixtures and other modern flourishes. The rest of the century-old department-store chain? Not so much.

Verizon Wireless and Jennifer Lopez teamed up Wednesday to launch Viva Movil, a new brand of cellphone retail store that will target Latino customers. The brand launched its website and a Facebook shopping app Wednesday and will roll out physical retail stores in the next few weeks. The first few stores will launch in Los Angeles, Miami and New York. The stores will be staffed with biligual employees, but the phones and plans sold by Viva Movil are the same as Verizon's. Customers can purchase the iPhone 5, Galaxy S 4 and the BlackBerry Z10.

For a fashion brand, getting picked up by J.Crew is practically the equivalent of getting venture backing in Silicon Valley. "We buy what other people do much better than we can ever do," says J.Crew's Chairman and CEO Mickey Drexler of the retailer's strategy to play curator. So while J.Crew's designers come up with fashion juggernauts like the The Ludlow Suit (aka "the perfect suit"), the company finds brands to pair up with — from a $13.00 Japanese Rollbahn spiral notebook to

At the beginning of Ron Johnson's short-lived but infamous reign as J.C. Penney's CEO in January 2012, he unveiled a logo that completely rebranded the company as JCP. It was its third logo in as many years. Following Johnson's dismissal, a result of losing $43 billion in sales and isolating loyal customers with its new business approach, J.C. Penney has made a concerted effort to go back to the good old days.

The power of a CEO to make (or break) a brand can never be overestimated — even in an interview that took place seven years ago. That's just what has happened in the case of Abercrombie & Fitch: an incredibly ill-advised interview that A&F CEO Mike Jeffries granted to Salon magazine in 2006 has found new life on the internet. And if his comments — including that he only wants the young, beautiful and thin to wear his clothes — were insensitive and politically incorrect then, today they're practically an invitation to riot. 

Teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't stock XL or XXL sizes in women's clothing because they don't want overweight women wearing their brand. They want the "cool kids," and they don't consider plus-sized women as being a part of that group.  Abercrombie is sticking to its guns of conventional beauty, even as that standard becomes outdated

Online home decor retailer One Kings Lane is debuting its first new brand today, launching a site aimed at allowing its users to sell items they own to other customers. Called Hunters Alley, the move to facilitate the sales of premium used decor and furnishings is part of an aggressive growth plan begun last year that has included the expansion of its offices and staff to compete in its main business of offering a curated shopping experience. Current competitors include Boston-based Wayfair, which

Coach was a $550 million business in 2000 when it went public and a $5 billion one a decade or so later. Now we're transforming it again into a lifestyle brand for women, with shoes, outerwear and capsule collections of tops and bottoms. A transformation has to be careful, nurtured. You have to understand what's distinctive about your brand and build on who you are. Consumers are smart — if you try to be something you're not, they'll see you as an impostor. Modify your product first and build interest and loyalty into what's coming.

It's surprising, though comforting, to find out that Lyons is humanly imperfect. Since her coronation as creative head of J.Crew in 2008, the company once known for its preppy Nantucket ancestry has become a force in fashion, with Lyons at the center of its evolution. She has created a high-low look that reflects her own boy-girl style--androgyny with some sequins and a dash of nerdy glasses. Along with annual revenue that has more than tripled to $2.2 billion since 2003, the cult of J.Crew has