Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.
Target Corp. Spokesperson
Disclaimer: I'm generally a fan of Target®. I appreciate the turn around they've implemented and I applaud their belief that general consumers (read: the rest of us as the unwashed masses) appreciate good design and want to own it, even if we don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it.
So it was with some alarm and a great deal of surprise when I learned that they seem to be so far out of touch with the reality of the world in which they do business. Here's the story:
They recently ran an ad that featured a young girl laying spread-eagle across a life-size representation of the notable trademark. This girl happened to be lying in a position that placed the center of the target -- the bullseye, so to speak -- directly between her akimbo legs.
A blogger named Amy Jussel from an organization called Shaping Youth took notice of the ad and sent a question to their corporate headquarters voicing her concern that this ad might be placing too much emphasis on the woman's genitals, and didn't they think this might be a little overly sexually subversive? (At this point in the story, you can choose to agree or disagree... it's their response that was truly imbecilic.)
Target responded with the following terse reply:
Good Morning Amy,
Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.
Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.
"We want to focus on publications that reach our core guest"? It's the Internet, folks, which part of your core do you think isn't being reached by the Internet? I could go on, but the stupidity of this stance is hopefully obvious.
I am forced to ask, however, "So what?" So they've alienated bloggers and marginalized that part of their core that
is being served by the Internet. So what? Will they be generally incensed enough to write thousands of words about how idiotic Target is? Probably. Maybe Definitely. Will these people stop shopping at Target? Maybe. Maybe not. The truth is, Target may never know the full cost of taking this position, because it may hit them in ways unforeseen by methods not contemplated.
An example? Sure... It's a known fact that the inclusion of product reviews on an e-commerce site can provide a noticeable boost to sales, especially for products receiving positive reviews. The reviews that have the most impact are not written by professional reviewers, they're written by customers. Is it possible that some of these customers, perhaps bloggers themselves, might be less likely to take the time to write a positive product review on Target's web site? Or, realizing that Target devalues their input, isn't it also possible that these same people might be more likely to only share their negative reviews? I think you can count on it.
Labels: blogging, internet, marketing, strategy, stupidity
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Wait, is this the same Target that has a website at Target.com? The same Target that sells more stuff online than they have in stock in their stores?
Not only is the response asinine, but the fact that they didn't actually read Amy's letter to respond to it correctly. They figured she was trying to get them to participate in her blog, rather than point out the negative image they were using.