Penney For Your Thoughts: Retailer Tries Live TV Spots To Engage Consumers

If live content tends to reduce DVR-aided skipping, perhaps JC Penney is onto something. It plans to air live-content ads during Thursday's Video Music Awards on MTV.

The two live spots are part of the retailer's category-exclusive sponsorship of the VMAs and a last-gasp push in its back-to-school campaign. The creative concept takes live footage from the VMAs and places it on screens embedded within the spots, which include shots inside teens' and kids' bedrooms. Ultimately, it links back to the live show inside New York's Radio City Music Hall.

Echoing a popular refrain among marketing executives increasingly interested in branded entertainment, JC Penney's vice president of brand marketing, Michael Cape, said in a statement: "We are looking to blur the edges between advertising and show content."

Other aspects of the company's relationship with the event, popular with the 12-to-34 demo, include several new "recorded" spots, such as the debut of fall fashion ads.

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