From Writers to Directors to Musicians, Kids Made Target's Back-to-School Ads

For retailers, the back-to-school season is especially lucrative, which makes it all the more important to ensure the message is impactful to young people. ?Nipping this problem in the bud, Target’s back-to-school campaign puts the kids themselves in charge.

The ads don’t just star kids—they were written and directed by kids, who also illustrated the sets. Helping to organize the action was 826LA, dedicated to helping youth develop creative writing skills, and agency Adolescent. 

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Deutsch L.A., Target Create Star Wars Fan Universe

Target Loved the Guy Who Trolled Its Haters, Judging by This Genius Facebook Post

How did Target really feel about Mike Melgaard posing as a Target customer service rep on Facebook and caustically replying to angry messages left by haters opposed to Target’s gender-neutral product labeling?

The retailer issued a pretty dry statement after AdFreak broke the story yesterday. (“Clearly this individual was not speaking on behalf of Target,” it said.) But behind the scenes, the brand was apparently loving it—at least judging by this Facebook photo that Target posted on Thursday evening.

The photo showed a couple of toy trolls. The caption read: “Remember when Trolls were the kings of the world? Woo hoo! They’re back and only at Target stores.”

Not only was this a clear reference to Melgaard’s antics, but Melgaard himself responded in the comments—under his own profile—writing, “Target. Seriously. You are AWESOME.” (With almost 2,500 likes, that is the most-liked comment on the photo.)

Following Melgaard’s expert trolling, Target’s post is pretty devious as well. And it confirms Melgaard’s earlier hunch that, yes, Target’s PR people are smart enough to know that a guy like Melgaard is their friend, not their enemy.

Man Poses as Target on Facebook, Trolls Haters of Its Gender-Neutral Move With Epic Replies

Brands can’t be as honest as they might like in dealing with haters on Facebook. But sometimes other Facebook users can do it for them.

That dynamic played out in particularly rogue fashion on Target’s Facebook page this week. As the retailer received a steady stream of nasty comments from people upset about its move toward gender-neutral in-store labeling, Facebook user Mike Melgaard posed as Target with a fake Facebook account—Ask ForHelp, with a bull’s-eye profile pic—and began excoriating the haters with comically sarcastic replies.

He got away with it for about 16 hours, too, commenting on about 50 posts before the fake account was shut down. Here are a few of his greatest hits:

Melgaard tells AdFreak that he was just surfing Facebook on Sunday night when he noticed that Target was moving away from gender-based labels in both the toy and children’s bedding sections.

“Immediately, I knew there would be your typical outraged American spouting emotional reactions on their Facebook page,” he says. “After taking a look, I was literally laughing out loud at my computer. A few more minutes in and it struck me how hilarious it would be to portray myself as a parody customer service rep. So, I did just that, and the rest was history. Honestly, it was like striking comedy gold. Every one of these people gave me the ammunition I needed for a great response.”

A self-described “pot-stirrer,” Melgaard says his stunt was more about the comedy than taking a stance on the issue. “I definitely side with Target and support their decision wholeheartedly,” he says. “That being said, this was, for me, more about the laughs. I absolutely love satirical humor, and I think America could use a little more laughter.”

Target is aware of Melgaard’s behavior but has not yet responded to AdFreak’s inquiries about it. For his part, Melgaard says he probably wasn’t doing the retailer any harm.

“Of course they could get upset,” Melgaard says, “but in this day and age I’m willing to bet their marketing team is intelligent enough to predict people like myself who come along to ‘stir the pot.’ I actually suspect that what I did shone an overall positive spotlight on Target.”

See more of Melgaard’s trolling below.

Target Celebrates Pride Month with ‘Take Pride’

Target launched a new in-house campaign in celebration of Pride Month, entitled “Take Pride.”

The 80-second spot communicates the message, “We’re not born with pride. We take pride. Pride in celebrating who we were born to be.” That sentiment is shown to apply both to individuals and society, as the ad highlights steps taken toward equality over the years, from the 1978 Gay Freedom Day parade in San Francisco to modern footage of gay marriage and gay couples with children. While McGann Zhang took a personal approach to highlight the importance of Pride Month, Target does the opposite, offering a broad view celebrating progress made over the years. Target’s effort comes across as genuine and inspiring, avoiding any explicit branding until the logo appears at the end of the spot. As Adweek points out, the campaign follows Target coming out publicly in favor of gay marriage last August.

“Target proudly stands with the LGBT community, both as a team member and team player through all that we do—from our volunteer efforts to our long-standing partnerships with groups like Family Equality Council and Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, to the very products we carry in our stores and online,” Laysha Ward, Target’s social responsibility officer said in a blog post yesterday.

Inspiring though it may be, the message is not entirely altruistic, as Target will be selling various Pride Month items. Still, “Take Pride” avoids seeming opportunistic or shallow-minded and further cements the brand’s dedication to equality.

Target Takes the Long View in This Beautifully Eloquent Ad for Pride Month

“We’re not born with pride. We take pride. Pride in celebrating who we were born to be.”

That’s the message of Target’s #TakePride campaign for Pride Month, shared across the retailer’s social channels this week, and led by an 80-second spot that mixes animation, live action and documentary footage to create a message about awareness and equality.

“We’re not born knowing where our life will lead, the obstacles we’ll face, the joy we’ll find,” the voiceover says. “We’re not born knowing that these milestones are also stepping stones in helping us find our footing in what we stand for, and who we’ll stand by.”

The spot speaks to an evolving understanding of one’s true self and respect for one’s place in the world. And it does so in forthright fashion, noting that “heartbreaks” and adversity shape human experience and character. Its imagery acknowledges the long, complex, often rough road to enlightenment, mixing shots of San Francisco’s 1978 Gay Freedom Day parade with contemporary footage of two dads and their new baby.

So, the ad’s about a journey of discovery—for those in the LGBT community and, ultimately, for all of us.

In a way, that theme reflects Target’s—and in a broader sense, society’s—history with such issues. (Though it has positively portrayed LGBT people in ads for several years, some had questioned Target’s stance on progressive issues before its very public move last September in support of gay marriage.)

In a blog post on Monday, Laysha Ward, Target’s social responsibility officer, unequivocally stated the chain’s position: “Target proudly stands with the LGBT community, both as a team member and team player through all that we do—from our volunteer efforts to our long-standing partnerships with groups like Family Equality Council and Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, to the very products we carry in our stores and online.”

A gallery of rainbow- and “Love Is Love”-themed T-shirts, bow-ties, shorts, flip-flops and assorted paraphernalia follows.

Target is, after all, a for-profit venture seeking to sell stuff to as many consumer segments as possible. Yet its LGBT pitch is in step with the times, and in some ways transcendent, rather than opportunistic or cynical.

Just a decade ago, many mainstream marketers would have shunned such an appeal, fearing a backlash and boycotts from the right. Now, these pitches are becoming commonplace, part of the increasingly rich and inclusive lingua franca of modern life.

That’s a shift we can all be proud of.



Target Defends Homepage Redesign but Still Won’t Say Who Did It

Since late last week, when we pointed out the not-so-positive reaction many people had to Target's homepage redesign, we've been trying to answer two seemingly simple questions: Who did the redesign, and why?

Now, Target has finally responded to our inquiries, and while the retailer defends the redesign as a way to highlight a larger number of holiday deals, it has declined to reveal whether it was an in-house project or assigned to a digital agency.

"Over the last two weeks we have unveiled several new home pages on Target.com to support the increased number of deals on our site this holiday season," a Target spokesman wrote in an email to AdFreak. "User testing prior to launch, and actual site traffic and sales performance since, have been very positive. We plan additional changes to our design and features, and will track guest response and make adjustments along the way."

Asked specifically whether the redesign was managed internally or by an agency, the rep replied, "Nothing further to share."

AdFreak reached out to four of the largest digital agencies that have high-profile relationships with Target—Olson, SapientNitro, Huge and Razorfish—and each denied any involvement in the redesign. Several said they believed the work was all managed in-house by Target.

Meanwhile, though the initial surge of criticism seems to be fading, most of the feedback to the site redesign remains pretty negative.

"With all the boxes outlining deals and specials," writes Jezebel, "it's like some unholy cross between Pinterest and a supermarket circular."


    

Pretty Much Everyone Hates the New Target.com Redesign

This holiday season, there's one thing everyone's sure to be getting on Target.com: a headache.

The recently relaunched Target site is sparking quite a bit of backlash from the design community, primarily due to the site's abundance of drop shadows and overall cluttered-as-crap vibe. The new look definitely puts a lot more product on the home page, but it sacrifices that minimalist "Target look" that the brand has spent so many years perfecting. 

While the previous site design also had its critics, this one seems to be beloved by almost no one. Check out a pretty accurate cross-section of recent tweets:

This was about as close as we could find to people defending the redesign:

And this guy, who (for the first time in my life) I hope is trolling.

UPDATE: Some on Twitter have suggested that Olson might have been behind the redesign, but agency VP Jeremy Mullman says it wasn't them. "While Olson does a great deal of digital work for Target," Mullman writes in an email to AdFreak, "we did not manage or work on the Target.com redesign." Mullman said he was unsure who had created the new design.

We've reached out to Target for clarification.


    

Justin Timberlake Surprises Biggest Fans on Set in New Target Commercial

Advertising has been obsessed lately with scaring the crap out of people. So here, for your Friday enjoyment, is a more benign prank. Target, which is the exclusive retail partner for the release of Justin Timberlake's new album, got 20 of the pop star's biggest fans together for a commercial shoot. They thought they would just be singing a Timberlake song for the ad. They didn't realize the great and powerful JT himself would actually be there. Check out the spot below, and a behind-the-scenes video after the jump. All the reactions are genuine. Decent work by Deutsch in Los Angeles—though to be honest, the bar for this kind of thing was set by David Beckham and Adidas last summer. If you don't leave someone sobbing tears of joy, maybe you haven't gone far enough.

Target mira nas “coleções do dia a dia”

Comerciais de supermercados ou de produtos como detergente, pasta de dente e afins geralmente são sempre a mesma coisa, sem muito espaço (ou grandes tentativas) para a criatividade. Por outro lado, os filmes de perfumes e roupas de grandes grifes costumam ter aquela pegada etérea, misteriosa, com visuais de tirar o fôlego e que nem sempre precisam ter pé ou cabeça. Daí aparecem estes comerciais da Target, dentro da campanha The Everyday Collection, que passa a tratar os produtos do dia a dia com a mesma criatividade, beleza e sensualidade que o mundo fashion trata suas criações.

Por enquanto são oito filmes, que cobrem desde lanchinho de frutas para as crianças até lâmpadas, passando por mistura para bolo, lenços úmidos e fraldas. As narrações merecem atenção especial. Confira o resultado e opine.

A criação é da agência Mono.

 

Brainstorm9Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Target se destaca no episódio final de “Lost”

Lost Target Ads Commercials

Hoje em que vivemos o primeiro dia, depois de 6 anos, sem “Lost”, o tema está por todos os cantos. Incluindo esses três comerciais da Target que foram veiculados durante os intervalos do episódio final.

E porque eles merecem destaque? Pelo simples motivo de terem sido totalmente relacionados a série, e mais, dirigidos pelo próprio Jack Bender, o diretor-master de “Lost”.

Brainstorm #9Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Neighbourhood Dance Works: Valentine’s Burlesque

Neighbourhood Dance Works: Valentine’s Burlesque

Neighbourhood Dance Works needed a quick and cost-effective way to get audiences excited about their upcoming Valentine’s Burlesque show.
Viral video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJGLBq71vA

Advertising Agency: Target, St. John’s, Canada
Creative Director: Tom Murphy
Art Director: Dax Fullbrook
Copywriter: Kurt Mills
Released: February 2008