Target to Bloggers: We don’t care about you.
January 17, 2008
Julia Roy reports today about Target and it’s big dis of bloggers.
Apparently, some bloggers have written in to complain about what is seen as a suggestive ad by Target. Amy from ShapingYouth.org wrote to the company to complain. She received a response which included:
“We are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.”
That’s interesting because…
I (used to) get email marketing campaigns in my inbox. That’s not traditional media.
Last year they had a Facebook group. That’s not traditional media.
They allow customer comments and ratings on their site. That’s not traditional media.
With 100 million people claiming blogs these days, Target can’t afford for bloggers not to be the “core guest” they so eagerly seek to reach.
Their response to Amy is so disingenuous due to the fact that they did, in fact, respond to her (via electronic methods, of course) and that new media is a great way to reach their core guest.
Target was the last company that I thought would be afraid to participate in the conversation about their brand, but they’re clearly more interested in push than pull.
Posted in Social Media, Blogging by Nathania Johnson
1.919.451.8983
January 18th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I ran across the same story on Twitter yesterday.
Remember the little kid in your neighborhood who would only play pretend if you followed his/her “rules” and did everything he/she said? (And generally, the “rules” boiled down to “I’m the ’star’ and everyone else can just stand around verbally admiring me.” Boring!)
When other kids wanted to have a voice in the story, he or she would get mad and go home. That’s what Target’s attitude reminds me of.
Either everybody plays and everybody has a voice, or you can go home and sulk and see how popular that makes you.