Creepy Or Really Good Marketing?

Awhile back I heard a news story about Target and their incredibly perceptive advertising – so perceptive that Target new a father’s daughter was pregnant before he did. If you haven’t heard the story before, I highly recommend reading this article in Forbes. In a nutshell, Target sent a flyer for discounts on maternity clothing to a high school aged girl. Her father was furious upon seeing the advertisement and went directly to the nearest Target to speak with a manager. He later discovered that his daughter was in fact pregnant.

Target knew the young girl was expecting based on a predicted pregnancy score they utilize. When certain products are bought in a designated time frame, the possibility the shopper is pregnant is determined.

So is this creepy or really effective marketing? My first thought is creepy. Target is able to know so much about me just by tracking purchases to my credit card without me knowingly giving permission. Now that we know Target has the capabilities to target its customers so well, this could encourage many shoppers to avoid the store all together.

On the other hand, I think this is incredibly effective marketing and it really doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. I certainly have not stopped shopping at Target after hearing this story. In a way, I can see this as actually being beneficial for the consumer. I appreciate receiving relevant discount information for items I would need to purchase. I would actually get annoyed if I received marketing from a company that was not relevant to me at all. For instance, if I were to receive mailers from Target saying their video games were on sale I would immediately disregard it as junk mail; however, if I received a mailer with discounts on beauty items, I’d be more likely to make a purchase with it.

Bottom line is that Target really has developed a powerful tool for understanding the purchases decisions each customer makes. This is something that will definitely help to grow the business. If they can manage to keep their advertising more subtle, they will avoid creeping out their customers. 

The Logo That Went Viral

This week our lecture revolved around several different topics, like gaming and mobile marketing. We also spent time learning more about social media and innovation. While thinking about what this week’s blog post should focus on, I received a LinkedIn update with links to some recommended articles. Coincidentally, one link caught my eye – “3 Spot-On Social Media CampaignsEvery Brand Can Learn From.” To me, the campaigns highlighted in this article demonstrate effective use of social media in combination with innovative messaging and ideas.

The first campaign listed here is the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) red equal sign logo. If you were active on any social media platform in the Spring of 2013, this image should look familiar to you. 

According to the article, there was a “120% difference in the amount of Facebook usersthat changed their profile pictures on Tuesday, March 26th than onthe previous Tuesday. The logo received 10 million impressions, 189,177 shares,95,725 likes and appeared more than 18 million times in News Feeds.” Apparently, this campaign made an incredible impact. Without social media, I do not think the HRC’s red logo would have made such a powerful statement in a short amount of time.

There is a quote from Chris Heatherly, Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Disney, which, in my opinion, begins to explain why I this campaign is innovative. Innovation is “a simple, clever idea well executed that makes things better for people” (Classnotes Week 4 pg 28). The HRC’s red logo is a simple, but obvious depiction of equality using an equal sign. They used a bright color, which easily grabs the attention of someone scrolling through a News Feed. It was also well executed in the sense that the timing was perfectly in sync with current events, and it was meant to educate people. I also think the campaign became viral because the logo was easily manipulated using other images; yet, people still understood the meaning behind each variation. The Mashable article referenced above, used this image to give readers an idea of how the equal sign became a meme.

I’m really happy I stumbled upon this article today. It gave me a chance to do a short analysis on why a particular campaign was successful. In my first blog post I mentioned that I need to stop and smell the roses more, a.k.a. read into things and think about them, not just gloss over. In this case, I did just that and I learned a lot! I am definitely going to remember the reasons why the HRC campaign was successful and see how I can apply this to my current work.