To sum up the article, a blogger found an image that Target used for advertising to be offensive to women. The blogger, Amy Jussel, emailed Target with her concerns, and was told "Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets."
Bloggers all over the internet (I hate using the word blogosphere) were pretty peeved at this. Target responded to this by issuing the following statement "[W]e are reviewing the policy and may adjust it."
My personal take on t
his article is two part. Firstly, I think that the initial anger over the ad is completely ridiculous. As you can see, it is not just the woman's crotch in the bullseye, it is most of her torso and upper legs. As a woman, I in no way associate this symbol with any sort of degradation to my gender. It is a pretty cheesy ad, but hey, most Target ads are. At least the store themselves look nicer than Wal-Mart, and the clothing sold there is slightly nicer, but that has nothing to do with this article.Moving on, in response to the second part of this article, I think Target has shown a lot of ignorance when it comes to dealing with new media. Remember a couple months ago when it came out that Target was bribing members of Facebook and Myspace to shill their wares? That probably wouldn't have had such a bad effect if a ham fisted Target hadn't told participants to "keep it a secret." One look at the application page for "Target Rounders" shows that it seeks to recruit students who are popular both online and in real life.
Although Target shows some awareness as to the importance of media and word of mouth on the internet, they still exhibit blatant ignorance when it comes to not pissing people off. People in general don't like being belittled or lied to (even if their complaint is somewhat inane in the first place.) I will be curious to see if Target does indeed update their policy in regards to blogs, and if they will show any savvy when it comes to dealing with the internet.
1 comment:
You know, Stephanie, I've been thinking about this, and I've concluded that Target is incredible stupid. Their target audience (forgive the pun; I couldn't resist!) is the very people who blog if the clothing in their women's section is any clue! Very little in there that isn't most appropriate for women your age.
I've also been thinking about the original article. Maybe because I spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship between signs, contexts, and referents, but it seems to me that the so-called bullseye symbol has come to mean something else when it's configured as it is in an ad. I mean, a real bullseye doesn't have bands of the exact same size, does it? (It's been a long time since I played darts) But, even if they do, considering the context (advertising), that symbol, when executed in red and white, has come to mean "Target, the store" to many Americans. It's like the Nike swoosh. You don't need the word "Nike" to know what it means. And that's (to get back to my pun) the real point of the ad's subtext as it's presented: Women are Target's target. As the America's primary purchasers, we are always already located in the dead center of Target's target. Do you see what I mean?
Peace, Gina
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