Target’s new marketing strategy

Target’s new marketing strategy April 27, 2015

You know, I used to shop at Target fairly regularly, back when we lived in a somewhat closer part of town.  Now, not so much; I pick up my everyday sort of “discount store” items at Meijer, the original “one-stop shopping” where I can grab a package of socks along with my weekly grocery shopping.  And even when I’m running errands in the vicinity of the Target, they’re on my list much less often than they used to be, partly because their decision to use more floor space for groceries means that their selection in other areas has shrunk.  For instance, in the past, when shoe-shopping for the kids, I would have checked there for a good deal before going to the nearby shoe store, but now they’ve shrunk their selection too much.

But the other reason why I’ve moved away is because (a) they make it clear with bilingual “now hiring” signs that they’re happy to hire monolingual Spanish speakers and (b) as a result, the last time I asked for help finding an item from a store employee on the floor, that employee mumbled something and walked off to fetch a co-worker.  Now, perhaps this is still better than Walmart, where, judging from the disarray of their stores (sorry, Walmart), they just don’t seem to have employees on the sales floor.  But the combination of disregard for customer service and desire to minimize wages as much as possible that’s shown in hiring non-English-speakers?  no thank you.

Which is a long way of meandering into an article in the Trib today, available online at the LA Times, “Target takes aim at Latinos with new marketing campaign.”

The article describes a set of commercials airing, not on Spanish language stations, but on certain prime-time shows — Jane the Virgin, Modern Family, and Big Bang Theory TBS reruns — that target Latino (=Mexican-immigrant/2nd generation) shoppers.  The commercial described features three generations lingering at the dinner table, illustrating “sobremesa, a common practice in Latin cultures of lingering after a meal to chat”, accompanied by Spanish-language music, and with a final English-language tagline:  “There will always be a part of you that simply doesn’t translate.”

This is part of an ad campaign called “#SinTraduccion” = Without Translation, “the company’s first Latino-focused effort to rely on cultural concepts rather than merely translate general market advertising, as the chain previously has done.”  And the article then cites statistics about the projected population growth in Americans of Latin American descent, and says that Target is going after this market, and attempting to capture them as “brand-loyal” shoppers.  Unlike their other marketing, they’re not trying to showcase Target as a store with fashionable clothing and housewares at a low cost; they’re just trying to create a perception that, “if you’re Latino, this is the store for you.”

So maybe I don’t watch enough television.  Maybe I’m just not focused enough on these issues, but it seems unusual, to say the least, for a marketer to speak specifically to a particular ethnic group, and only that group, on mainstream American TV.  Sure, there are spots with “diverse” (as they say) actors, but we’re never meant to believe that a McDonald’s ad featuring a cute little black child is meant to reach only black viewers, any more than that a spot with white actors is meant for white viewers.  But these ads, as described, seem different — seem specifically to be targeting only Spanish-speakers, perhaps even suggesting that their culture is special and better than American culture.

My question is, in doing so, is Target going to alienate “non-diverse” shoppers?


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