Target, eh?!

Target is coming to town. And what a party we are planning!

http://sites.target.com/images/company/home/content/masthead_hello_canada.jpg
 

When I heard Target was coming to Canada, I was not all that excited. I figured we did not need another American company coming to Canada to encourage more ‘Über-shopping’ and perhaps take away customers from some of our Canadian stores. I believe that as a society we need to learn to shop less and get by with less ‘stuff’. However, that is my personal opinion, one that I need to develop with my own lifestyle...still a work in progress. At this point I would be considered a hypocrite with this philosophy. After all, this week I’m taking a whole tour bus full of Winnipeggers to Minneapolis for the Black Friday weekend. To shop! At Target...and other places...American shopping places. My walk doesn’t meet my talk...yet.

Target has created a buzz in Canada. They state that they are going to provide Canadians with new shopping opportunities, with new-to-Canada products, and all at affordable prices. Target is also committed to being a good neighbour, bringing much benefit to each of the communities where one will find a Target location. It is these benefits that my PR tactics will focus on.

Since I was assigned to develop tactics for Target’s coming to town, I started with research, as Samantha, our PR instructor, has ingrained in us. Research can sure open our eyes, eh? Prior to research, I viewed Target as being another Walmart type corporation: a giant that puts small businesses out of business and doesn’t bring much benefit to a community, in my opinion. Perhaps Walmart could use a dose of good PR!

Target may be new to Canada, but its roots can be traced back to1902, under the name Dayton’s Dry Goods Company. They were philanthropic from the early days of the corporation as The Dayton Foundation, now known as The Target Foundation. I was duly impressed with the company’s generosity and ethical behaviour. They have also won numerous awards and acclamations from reputable sources. Either they have tremendous luck with great PR, or they are truly a decent company. Their good reputation made it quite easy to come up with positive PR tactics.

Target is coming to town. This is a story the media will want to report. Part of my strategy is to make certain they are able to report positive facts about Target and that the message of Target as a 'Good Neighbour' comes across loud and clear. As the president of Target Canada says:

 

"Target is so much more than just a place to shop. We also have a long history as a great place to work and of being a strong partner in the cities and towns where we do business. I’m proud to report that we’re already hiring a great team and launching our philanthropic efforts."
 

Here are some of the tactics I have come up with that will share the philanthropic philosophy of Target and also the benefit Target brings to communities, as well as the opportunity for shopping deals:

 

·        Target will keep on top of social media, their website and blogs to keep their publics posted about all upcoming events, contests and philanthropic goals, as well as special shopping deals.

 

·         Target will have regular press releases about upcoming events, contests, goals and objectives for each Target community store. These press releases will start in December and increase in frequency as the opening dates move closer.

·         Target will place ads and also media awareness campaigns on television, radio and newspapers, starting January 25, 2013. They will promote store openings, sales, shopping merchandise and also Good Neighbour events. These include all of the campaigns and programs included in the tactics.
 

·         Not only is Target already taking job applications online, Target will also hold job fairs on a weekly basis beginning three weeks prior to store openings. This will also be announced via a press release.
 

·         Target will continue to promote their Canadian REDcard, advertising on television, radio and newspapers as well as social media about the REDcard and the opportunity to use it online and in any of the Target stores.
 

·   Target will start a "Take Charge of Education" program in Winnipeg on January 25, 2013, three months prior to their opening. Schools will be invited to enroll online, and parents and the community will be invited to sign up for the REDcard online, choosing a school to support.
 

·         Starting February 1, 2013, Target will be holding a contest for local public school students to come up with a YouTube video that will promote the Target Brand. The winning school will receive $25,000 in grant money and a chance to have their video used for a nation-wide television commercial. Each school may send in as many video submissions as they wish. The winner will be chosen on Opening Day, April 19, 2013. Contest announcement will coincide with the Take Charge of Education announcement.

·          Each store will have its own Facebook page. For every ‘like’ the page receives, it will donate a dollar to community sports and/or arts programs.
 

 

·         The “Paint the town RED” campaign will take place February 8-16, 2013 in each community where a new Target is opening up. A group of Target staffers will have a display set up in specific local malls. Everyone who visits the displays and is wearing a RED shirt will receive a coupon worth $10 off a $50 purchase at any Target location, including online shopping. Not only that, but for every RED shirt Target will donate $10 to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
 

·         The“Paint the town RED” campaign will ask people to sign up for email updates, and will have a small survey available asking questions about the perceptions and expectations of the new Target store. The staff will have opportunity to interact with their public and also try to get feedback and contact information so they can keep in touch and hopefully evaluate the success of the launch at a later date. There will also be awareness made of all Target Canada social media links, and apps.

 

·         Target will hold a fashion show in the mall during the “Paint the town RED” campaign. This will showcase a number of models wearing some of the quality fashion items Target will sell in their store.

 

·         Target will be looking to hire four teen-age Target ambassadors during the “Paint the town RED” campaign. Once hired, they will be featured in future mailers as models and will help out with local media events, campaigns, and opening ceremonies. They will also speak to the younger generations on social media sites and the Take Charge of Education program and will also help judge the YouTube Target video submissions from the schools.

 

·         During the week of April 11 and April 18, Target flyers and mailers will be sent out to the surrounding communities of each store, advertising special opening week deals. Coupons for Target product deals will be included in the mailers. These flyers and coupons will continue to be sent out weekly as is common in the Winnipeg market.

 

·         Store opening will be April 19, 2013 and opening week will take place April 19-28, 2013. There will be an opening ceremony and cookies as well as free coffee or hot chocolate from Starbucks will be served.

 

·         The president of Target Canada will be present at each store opening and will hold a press release prior to the opening and the day after the store opening.
 

·         The Target store opening will also include prominent people from the community. They will be educators and representatives from some of the causes that Target will support, such as United Way, Salvation Army, Heart and Stroke Foundation, and others.

·         Throughout opening week, there will be opportunities for draws and the possibility of winning free merchandise. There will be special sales and promotions planned throughout the opening week.

 

·         During opening week, April 19-28, 2013, Target will donate not only the regular 5% REDcard purchase profits, but 10% of its local store profits to various community causes, a list of which can be found on their website. This will also be announced at one of the many press conferences prior to opening.

    Now, how excited are you that Target is coming to town, eh?! I, for one, have started a whole new love affair with this red beast.

            http://www.milkandcoco.ca/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/target-loves-canada1.jpg

 

Strategy Before Tactics

Coca-Cola Sees Red

I try to make good eating choices. Along with making healthy food selections, comes the benefit of lower calorie choices. This isn’t always the case, but healthy eating habits often mean less caloric intake. However, there is one unhealthy choice that I partake in, although in limited quantities. I sometimes drink diet soda. I know that the best option would be to avoid soda entirely, but I subscribe to the Pareto Principal, also known as the 80-20 rule. Eighty percent of the time I make healthy choices and twenty percent of the time I might eat or drink something to tickle my palate, even if it does keep those extra ten pounds on my body! But I refuse to consume ridiculous amounts of calories by drinking high sugar content soda. Instead, I choose to drink diet soda.

My friends also fall into the 80-20 rule: eighty percent of them have dietary habits similar to mine, and twenty percent choose to eat whatever they feel like eating. It’s interesting to note that my ‘twenty percent’ group of friends are very quick to criticize me when they see me drinking my diet drink, while they gulp down large regular sodas, along with fries, donuts and other items on my ‘never-ever-eat’ list. They are convinced I will die of brain cancer, due to the aspartame ‘poison’ in the soda.  I do make a point of limiting my aspartame intake to very small amounts – not the large amounts given to rats in experiments. I’ve done my research...I know what I’m doing.
 

Those in the diet-soda-is-okay school of thought verses the diet-soda-will-kill-you school of thought can be quite adamant about their opinions. It was into this tangled web that Coca-Cola met a PR disaster last Christmas.
 

Coca-Cola is a company which has obviously had a lot of PR experience, both positive and negative. One of their most successful re-branding efforts included using the polar bear as their advertising mascot, introduced very successfully into the North American market in 1993.
 

However, one of their biggest campaign disasters was the 1985 Coke formula-change, known as "New Coke". You would think they would’ve learned from this. Before deciding upon a strategy and going forth with a new plan, every campaign must build a strong foundation of research, understanding their stakeholders, having their objectives and goals in place along with their key messages. Coca-Cola knows this, yet they failed again just a year ago.

 

In October of 2011, Coca-Cola introduced a new colour into their Holiday cans of Coke. Instead of the traditional red cans, they brought out white cans. Their intentions were good. They wanted to use this colour change in a new campaign called "Arctic Home" that would bring donations and awareness to the efforts expended by WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to protect the polar bears’ habitat. Perhaps Coca-Cola spent all of their research on people’s perceptions about the polar bears' plight and how their public would react to the idea of supporting WWF. Their research, objectives, strategy and key messages regarding this part of the campaign were probably very well-done. However, they didn’t think deep enough and go far enough with their assessment.

 

Coca-Cola was reminded how fickle their public can be. Yes, their public was glad the WWF was going to help save the polar bears. But, Coca-Cola confused a big part of their public when they changed the can colours from red to white. Going with white cans meant that the diet drinkers’ silver cans were quite similar in colour. Remember the opinionated crowds that either wanted to drink only diet soda, or only non-diet soda? Well, horrors! Diet drinkers were buying the white cans instead of the silver cans and getting real-sugar cola, along with all those extra calories! No wonder we, the diet-drinking-public, gained all that weight over Christmas last year! Others avoided the white cans because they assumed they were diet drinks. Many people felt that “abandoning red was blasphemy.”  [1]

“Some consumers complained that it looked confusingly similar to Diet Coke’s silver cans. Others felt that regular Coke tasted different in the white cans. Still others argued that messing with red bordered on sacrilege.” [2]

                                                         http://teachthe4ps.com/coke.jpg

We can only assume that Coca-Cola did not take enough time to research and survey their publics regarding the actual can-colour change. Even though the drink was not altered in any way; even though the beloved polar bear icon was not only promoting the drink, but was being helped by the sales of it; the entire campaign was a big flop. A great overall idea met failure because a small detail was not researched thoroughly enough. This is a great lesson and case study for us as PR students. Let’s remember this and hopefully we can avoid ever making this kind of PR strategy error.

 

References:

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[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2068952/Coca-Cola-ditch-festive-snow-white-customers-mistake-Diet-Coke.html

[2] http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1096542--coke-can-goes-back-to-red