Target Has a Musical Holiday

Target turned up the dial on its holiday marketing campaign by building this year's effort around a musical production.Following on the heels of the animated "Holiday Odyssey" it presented in 2015, the mass merchant this year recruited award-winning artist John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen for a Broadway-style "mini-musical spectacular" dubbed "The Toycracker." (See video below.) The production aired on Dec. 11 as an eight-minute musical story running in two parts during the network broadcast premiere of Walt Disney Co.'s Frozen on ABC.A celebrity-studded sneak-peek event in New York supported the production. Popular toys like Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mattel Inc.'s Barbie that appeared in The Toycracker also showed up in the retailer's other spots leading up to the event. (See video below.) Additional seasonal spots running throughout the season brought back the gingerbread-man announcer the retailer introduced last year. The activity was in both English and Spanish as Target increased its investment in media that reaches the Hispanic demographic.The retailer’s ad spend increased 8% year over year from Oct. 31 to Nov. 27 but dropped 5% from Nov. 21 to Dec. 11, Kantar Media reported. The ads focused on general savings rather than Black Friday messaging, which did not surface until Thanksgiving week and were less prominent than in prior years.In stores, the retailer's seasonal P-O-P package reflects the Toycracker theme. Ceiling signs carry messages such as "Make the holidays spectacular" and "Now playing" while endcap headers boast "Applause-worthy prices." The endcaps stock items from various brands including Hallmark Cards' Crayola, TPG Growth's e.l.f. and Stanley Black & Decker. Hershey Co.'s Kisses got a special mention by providing the retailer with an exclusive holiday SKU. One endcap also was dedicated to Hanukkah products. Target additionally made room in the grocery department and near store entrances for temporary displays from national brands.In the seasonal department, a "Wondershop" destination modeled after Target's Bullseye's Playground shop stocks more than 2,000 new seasonal products. A supporting standee distributes the retailer's toy book near store entrances. Online, a "Wonderlist Gift Guide" groups gifts by personality types.For the first time, Target offered in-store pickup services for online orders during its Black Friday shopping event on Thanksgiving night. Sprucing up the service in advance of the event, the mass merchant remodeled 80 top-volume order-pickup stores to include designated pickup areas. Additionally, at 325 stores the retailer designates employees specifically to fill online orders and distributes reusable pickup bags. Behind the scenes, the mass merchant is fulfilling online orders from 1,000 of its stores this season, up from 460 last year.Target was among leading retailers in terms of click share for product listing ads and paid search keywords for Black Friday, Kantar reported. Mobile and social media activity was also an important part of the mix, with the mass merchant boasting the highest engagement on Instagram from Nov. 23-28, according to social media intelligence company Unmetric.The digital efforts seem to have paid off. Black Friday heralded the mass merchant's biggest sales day ever for target.com, with traffic and sales — more than 60% of them from mobile — eclipsing 2015 Cyber Monday numbers.Target also stuffed its A Bullseye View website with seasonal content ranging from a gingerbread house how-to to holiday fashion and decorating tips.Additional seasonal activity included multiple co-op FSIs with Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Henkel Corp. Display ads running on a wide range of websites, circular features, email blasts and local radio spots also contributed to the holiday campaign.

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