Target Goes Country for Brooks

Target amped up its promotional strategy on music exclusives in unveiling a custom collection from country music artist Garth Brooks.The mass merchant partners with a steady stream of artists throughout the year to offer newly released albums with bonus songs. For Brooks' new album, Gunslinger, the retailer boosted its usual offering to exclusively stock an entire ten-disc collection. The Garth Brooks: The Ultimate Collection box set bundle includes the new album, 18 previously unreleased tracks and, as usual, two bonus songs available only at Target.Floorstands positioned both upfront and in the entertainment department merchandise the custom offering, which hit Target stores on Nov. 11 — two weeks ahead of Pearl Records' standalone national release of Gunslinger on Nov. 25. The SKU was also stocked on an endcap in the entertainment department outfitted with a dedicated header.A display ad running on the target.com home page incentivized pre-orders of the collection by offering it as part of a "holiday bundle" that also included the musician's first-ever duets album with wife Trisha Yearwood, Christmas Together.The ad linked to a target.com showcase the offered a slew of video clips of Brooks performing various snippets of the available songs for Target on a branded stage. Four of the clips ran as TV spots during the Nov. 2 airing of the Country Music Association Awards — continuing Target's promise to bring #MoreMusic to the masses. (The musician also performed for Target employees at the retailer's national fall meeting.)The TV spots (see video below) continued to run throughout November, and a new one was added for Black Friday. A Nov. 6 circular feature, local radio spots and display ads running on websites such as rollingstone.com also supported."Not only will we have [Brooks'] new album two weeks before it is available anywhere else, we've also filled our boxed set with highly anticipated tracks that guests will only ever find at Target," said chief merchandising officer Mark Tritton in a post on the retailer's "A Bullseye View" blog."The Target boxed set is the ultimate collection. Ten discs, previously unreleased tracks, and never before audio releases of some of the biggest moments in Garth music history makes me love this collection," Brooks said in the post. "For example, the 25th anniversary edition of 'Friends in Low Places' with George Strait, Jason Aldean, Florida Georgia Line and Keith Urban is only available in this box and will be gone when the boxes are gone."This isn't the first time Brooks has offered an exclusive box set at a retailer. The artist gave Walmart an exclusive collection in 2005, when he also starred in the mass merchant's holiday marketing campaign.

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