Link provided in this thread.
From a purely business perspective, JCP should have targeted the media venues that would best reach the demographic represented in the ad, instead of pretending it was good marketing for every demographic.
Critics may then be right, that they have hurt their own market in general family oriented middle class folks. I don’t think Kohls has had any drop in their sales and their target market is very similar to JCP; and I don’t remember seeing “Gay” focused ads from Kohls in my mailbox.