There's nothing left to say except the people who hired Johnson are idiots. He was successful at marketing a high-end brand as high-end and had no clue on how

There's nothing left to say except the people who hired Johnson are idiots. He was successful at marketing a high-end brand as high-end and had no clue on how to tactfully re-brand a company that had been around for generations. Especially considering it didn't need to be re-branded. Do you know why Nike doesn't sell shoes in Target or Walmart? You'd dilute the brand. So they bought Converse. The opposite is true as well, however. You certainly can cause brand confusion where your old customers don't like the changes and your new higher-end customers - well, they are still shopping at Nordstrom. Every step he made was fraught with clear consequences. Getting rid of discounts. Over-streamlining stores to a point they look partially empty. Trying to bring Target's successful ideas (like their mini-boutiques) into JCP just on a bigger scale. And trying to steal Martha Stewart from Macy's was just plain dumb, that's going to cost the company a lot of money. The board should've hired a CEO from the ranks of Target, Macy's, or Nordstrom instead of Apple. The high-end tech marketing didn't translate to middle-tier consumer shopping marketing.