EBlog

Is Target blowing it by not responding to bloggers?

January 29, 2008 | Posted by: Lee

A recent post on ShapingYouth.org went after Target for an ad they felt was inappropriate.  It featured an image of a teenage girl lying on the Target logo.  They felt it was inappropriate since her "private parts" were directly positioned over the center of the target. 

They sent an email to Target requesting an explanation.  Target replied via email, "Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets."  It seems that Target is discounting the power of blogs.  The explanation for their non-answer - "We choose to focus on only publications that reach our core guest."

Two observations:

1.  Target has a target as the company logo.  The model was centered on the logo.  Seriously, this wasn't a subliminal message being sent to the youth of America, so I think the post was really quite silly.  Which might account for Target blowing them off.

2. Target missed a great opportunity to connect with their customers (certainly Moms who read this blog might be real customers).  Not to mention the fact that their failure to respond has created more publicity than they likely wanted around this ad.  If they'd just answered in a polite way and explained that they had no intention of "targeting" this area it would be the non-issue it deserves to be.