Target: Missing the Bullseye with Bloggers?
So a bizarre chronology led to tonight’s story on the billboard controversy circling Target Corporation. A guy named Bennett Williamson snapped this photo on December 6. He didn’t upload it until January 6. It showed a Target billboard with a woman’s legs spread, directly centered over the Target bullseye logo. Bennett e-mailed me tonight and said, “I really was not thinking that this photo would receive any attention particularly when I took it - I just thought it was kind of offensive and funny.”
Amy Jussel runs a blog on marketing’s influence on children, and wrote about it on Tuesday of last week. Lisa Ray picked that up, blogging an open letter to Target on January 9th. I saw that last week, because Ray e-mailed me about a Good Question I was doing on parenting. It flared up again, today, when Ray blogged about Target dismissing bloggers.
Target’s P.R. people refused to answer Amy Jussel’s questions about the billboard, sending her this e-mail: “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.”
That got Paul Schmelzer at Minnesota Monitor fired up, along with Ed Kohler The Deets.com (worth a click for his photoshopped Target logo photos). So I made a call to Target, and Amy VonWalter happily answered my very traditional media outlet questions. She said, “It’s simply an advertisement with a woman making a snow angel, laying on our bullseye.” (she’s actually “lying” on the bullseye, but whatevs). She added, “It’s never our inention to offend any of our guests or the public,” and when I asked her if she felt the ad was offensive, she said, “Absolutely not.”
VonWalter did confirm that Target does have a policy of not responding to PR questions from blogs and trade publications. We chose to focus tonight on whether or not the ad was offensive.
Target has advertised in a provocative manner in Times Square before, Chris Kennedy snapped this shot of a summer Target campaign — people in bathing suits. So you decide. Offensive or not? E-mail me. I’ll share what you say (if it’s good) here.
