Friday, October 25, 2013

After last year's backlash, Target pushes back holiday campaign

According to AdAge, Target is preparing to kick off its "most digitally enabled campaign in history", but not as early as last year.

A year ago The Bullseye caught flack from consumers for launching its first holiday spot in mid-October. That ad, which focused on its Red Card branded credit card, featured an upbeat tune with the chorus, "Are You Ready?" Unfortunately, consumers were NOT ready to be bombarded with holiday ads that early in the season.

"We learned last year we just went too soon," said Jeff Jones, CMO at Target. "Even though it wasn't an overt commercial about Christmas products, people interpreted it that way."

This season, Mr. Jones said Target won't launch its anthem holiday ad until the first week of November. Early ads will also focus on Thanksgiving, which Target has not in the past. One TV spot shows a group of friends gathering around a turkey dinner, while another will promote the price per pound of turkey.

All of the advertising from Thanksgiving through Christmas will be organized under the theme "My Kind of Holiday," inspired by conversations on Twitter. Ads carry the hashtag, #MyKindOfHoliday. Having a single campaign is a departure for the retailer, which has typically relied on multiple campaigns, one for branding and one for promoting. This year, nearly all of the retailer's ads will be a hybrid, including specific deal and price-point messaging.

You can read the entire AdAge article - plus see a preview of the TV spot - here on AdAge's site.

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