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Rare Bird Blog

Target: So Many Things Right, One Big Thing Wrong

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

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

The Inmates (and/or the Legal Department) Are Running the Asylum

Friday, January 18, 2008

File this under the same business category as "New Coke" only bigger, dumber, but (possibly) less expensive, though the true cost is to be determined. You probably didn't know, but Mattel and Hasbro have been stewing recently about a MySpace application call Scrabulous that allows members of the site to play a game that is suspiciously (ok, it's the same) like Scrabble™. Unable to stand themselves any longer, they've ordered the game squashed like a G-R-A-P-E (17 points).

Now, obviously, this game is a violation of the Scrabble™ trademark, so why shouldn't they put their collective foot down? Well, let's consider that there were over 600,000 registered users playing this little wonder. And let's consider what percentage of half a million likely rekindled some sort of fondness for a game they hadn't played in years, and maybe -- just maybe -- picked up a new physical for home. And let's consider how virulent this new online world we live in can be. What were their options? I couldn't write a better list than Matt Dickman, so I'll just repeat it here:

If I were in Mattel's marketing department here is what my train of thinking would be here:

1. Somebody please kick the legal department out of the room. Thanks, now let's continue.
2. Wow! These guys built an awesome application around our brand
3. We NEED to talk to them and buy this application ASAP
4. We NEED to hire these guys (or at least retain them) to do updates and possibly roll this out to other networks (Bebo, MySpace, etc.)
5. Seriously guys, keep those lawyers out of here! Just tell them somebody in accounting is using the wrong Pantone color in the logo again.
6. If we can't buy it, we at least need to sponsor/co-present it as *the* official Scrabble game on Facebook
7. If none of those options work we need to congratulate those guys publicly for their efforts and encourage people to join in
8. I wonder why we didn't think of this.

Matt goes on to make some recommendations about how you should be applying this lesson learned to your own situation. Read it and take heed.

Labels: legal, marketing, stupidity