Target: TASTE OF TARGET

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: TARGET CANADA
Agency: VERITAS COMMUNICATIONS
Category: Best Integrated Campaign Led by Promotion and Activation
President/Creative Director: David Stark (David Stark Design)
President: Nick Dean (KBSP)

Relevancy
Based in Minneapolis, Target Corporation serves guests at 1,747 retail stores in the U.S. offering a broad range of consumer, household, lifestyle and fashion products and services. The company’s expansion into Canada required a PR plan to positively build Target’s Canadian retail and employment brands while avoiding the broadly negative reaction generated by other American retailer’s entry into the market.The campaign led all communications and was executed over a two-year period, from the announcement of the retailer’s plans to expand to Canada up until the first store openings.

Strategy
The strategy was all about love: in order to demonstrate that Target Loves Canada, the brand would need to give love in order to receive it in return. We had to demonstrate to Canadians that Target loves and respects them (and recognizes how they are different from Americans), and that Target wants to earn their love (and understands that it could be neither expected nor demanded).Target’s love for Canada would be shown through a series of PR encounters mounted across the country designed to influence the influencers and amplified through traditional and digital media.

Execution
Target invented the pop-up store; we made it Canadian, visually branding a one-day store with striking “Target Loves Canada” iconography and featuring the newest design partnership with Canadian-raised Jason Wu (who had recently generated global buzz with his outfits for Michelle Obama). The Toronto pop-up was literally lined up around the block; buzz was extended across the country through giveaway promotions with top style bloggers in each province. “Beach” events held across the country reflected Target’s understanding of Canadians’ love of fun in the summer sun.“Target Hotel” at the Toronto International Film Festival, fully outfitted with Target products, gave film industry players a place to relax with stars from Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC.“Holiday” events across Canada featured hometown national music stars and free Starbucks coffee and hot chocolate.“Give with Target” let Canadians decide how to allocate $1 million in CSR funding in communities across the country.

Effectiveness
Awareness of Target’s impending arrival among Canadians grew to 92 per cent following execution of the “Taste of Target” campaign – a 20 percentage-point increase from the pre-campaign level.750 million media impressions were generated, with highest favourability reaching 94 per cent – a 16 percentage-point increase.8,000 Canadians participated in the “Give with Target” CSR initiative and 12,346,308 media impressions were generated. The $1 million in funding was fully allocated to worthy initiatives in three days.Staff recruitment goals of 650 Canadian head office employees and 5,000 retail team members in southern Ontario were achieved ahead of schedule; goal of 27,000 hires by fall of 2013 is on track.Labour movement opposition has not impacted on hiring, nor on Canadians’ intention to shop at Target stores or favourability toward Target.The “Taste of Target” strategy and execution led to Target being named “Pre-Brand of the Year” in Strategy Magazine’s 2012 Brands of the Year issue.

Campaign Description
In 2011, Target, one of the USA’s leading retailers, chose Canada to be the first country outside the United States for expansion – and us to be its Canadian public relations partner. We developed and executed a public relations plan that would lead Target’s Canadian brand-building efforts – both consumer-facing and for human resources recruitment to support the hiring of 27,000 employees across the country and overseas (for call centre support).With no supplemental brand engagement opportunities through e-commerce (Target’s online retail – would not be operational until after store openings), we took a lead role in collaborating with other agencies and internal partners to created a series of experiential executions we dubbed “A Taste of Target” to generate positive media coverage, online conversation and word-of-mouth.To mitigate strongly held negative perceptions by Canadians about previous U.S.-based retail expansion into the country, the plan was rooted in a “humble and authentic” approach to demonstrate that Target was genuinely interested in getting to know – and love – its northern neighbours.From a one-day pop-up store in downtown Toronto showcasing Canadian-born designer Jason Wu’s latest limited-edition designs, to “Bullseye Beach” events across the country featuring beach volleyball and sandcastle competitions, to the Target Hotel offering filmmakers and celebrities an oasis away from the hubbub of the world’s second largest film festival, to the “Give With Target” CSR initiative that let Canadians determine how to allocate $1 million in philanthropic funding, “A Taste of Target” exceeded objectives and is now a global template for future expansion.

Client Brief Or Objective
The goal of “A Taste of Target” was to establish and maintain momentum over the two-year period from the announcement of Target’s move into Canada through to the opening of the stores; to generate positive media coverage, online chatter and word-of-mouth in all parts of Canada while also guarding against possible brand fatigue and mitigating potential negatives, including entrenched perceptions of American retail giants moving into the country, as well as labour-related issues involving former employees of the previous retailers in the same store space (Zellers – a division of The Hudson Bay Company)