Good Marketing, You Get Some Money

Target gets how to market to people, they get that it can't just be a bunch of coupons for a bunch of products that everyone else sells too. Well, they could do it but then no one would give a damn and I'd be writing about the opportunity they failed to grasp when, in fact, they did grab ahold of that opportunity and have been working it with a vengeance.

Witness the latest coupon book mailer we got the other day. The book has all the same coupons you would get from Wal-Mart (ewwwwww!) or K-Mart or something but they did it with some style. The Target mascot is an American pit bull named something cutesy that I can't remember right now. In this latest mailing, they had the dog start out sitting in the bottom corner of the book. But with each page, the dog moves a little bit. Flipping through the coupons like a flip book and you find out that the dog jumped too high and jumped right out of the book altogether.

No, its not Oscar-worthy, nor does it have to be. Its smile-worthy and that's the important part. It says, "Hey, we've got a sense of humor and we've also got good deals. Why not give us a try on your next shopping trip?" and that's alot mellower than beating someone over the head with huge marked down prices (that had just been quietly marked up). It says to me that Target's not just about getting the money from you, they're also helping to build a brand which leads to loyalty and repeat business.

Jenny Craig, on the other hand, is pursuing a different path with their latest advertisements. They feature a still plump Kirstie Alley with about six pounds of makeup on and five hours worth of hair styling (though I would say she looks more like a bad transvestite than the hottie they were intending to make her into), they have her being, basically, a fucking idiot. Leaping around about how she's not fat anymore and how great Jenny Craig is and all that happy, slappy bullshit. Kirstie Alley's annoying and she gets ten times more annoying when she's shilling for someone.
Tags: marketing, advertising, Target, Jenny Craig