Creative Direction & Copy

Back to School, Back to You

A new school year represents a fresh start for teens and kids to reinvent their personal style. JCPenney’s marketing tagline, “Back to You,” encourages students, and teachers, to get back into a routine and kickstart a new year of academics, as well as easy-to-wear style. The campaign will be brought to life throughout the Company’s email, social and digital marketing channels. Audiences should look closely as several real-life teachers will be featured in these marketing campaigns, calling out their local schools and cities. JCPenney social media channels will also partner with teachers to showcase back-to-school trends through unique and engaging content.

Best-in-class trends
Trends for this school year are all about feeling confident and comfortable. For girls, this includes miniskirts in different fabrics, activewear and high-waisted jeans. Boys want clothing that can keep up with them from the classroom to the basketball court, including activewear, flex jeans and graphic tees.

Denim is a back-to-school staple, and we’ve done a great job of interpreting what students are looking for in their ultimate pair of jeans. In juniors, styles will be focused on high-waist, ankle lengths, clean (not destructed) finishes, black washes and exposed button fly’s. For girls, we have age-appropriate denim trends including stretch, embroidery, embellishments, destruction, jean jackets and cuffed and cropped hems. Teen guys and boys will find similar denim trends featuring destruction, cuffed and cropped hems as well as black washes.

We also identified a big trend that we’re calling the “New 90s.” As you can imagine, this includes lots of high-waist jeans, oversized jean jackets, color blocking and cardigans for girls and juniors. Teen girls will also find denim skirts, plaid shirts, mini-skirts and cropped tees. For teen guys and boys, we have retro stripes, checkerboard patterns, retro logos, track suits and more color blocking.

“Throwback Varsity” is another fun trend featured throughout our teen and kids’ departments identified by preppy stripes, sporty graphics and retro-style script details. Varsity-style shirts are big for all ages featuring stripes and numbers and, of course, the classic varsity jacket is a must to complete this sporty style.