It’s time to look at the shortlist for Marketer of the Year, which appears in Marketing’s Nov. 19 issue. We’ll be featuring each one online as a lead-up to our January 2013 issue, where you’ll find out which marketer will reign supreme.
It won’t even open its first stores in Canada for months but Target still had a huge impact on the retail landscape in 2012
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Not true if that canine represents a marketing and merchandising powerhouse that has been busy marking its territory on the Canadian retail landscape.
Target, the Minneapolis-based retailer known for selling high-fashion goods at reasonable prices, has been teasing its northern debut with pop-up events this year as cool and distinctive as the brand itself-—and usually with its well-behaved mascot dog, Bullseye, in tow. Rather than simply mimic the success of its U.S. marketing initiatives, Target Canada has hosted events with the Canadian consumer and culture in mind.
Take the Target Hotel, for instance. For the first few days of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the retailer took over all 27 rooms in the newly opened Templar Hotel in the city’s entertainment district to serve as a home for bloggers, influencers and Canadian stars. The hotel was transformed into a brand experience with bursts of red decorative accents such as pillows, chairs, flowers and prints brought in from the retailer’s U.S. headquarters. It was a way of celebrating design, pop culture and innovation, and “establishing partnerships in a way that showcased the Target brand,” says Lisa Gibson, spokesperson for Target Canada.
It was also a first for the 50-year-old company, which is known in the U.S. for its fun, upbeat television campaigns and limited-time-only collaborations with famous designers. While certain branding ideas were borrowed from past events, Target has never before taken over a hotel during a major film festival, says Gibson.
The Target Hotel was one in a string of event marketing initiatives the retailer hosted to introduce the brand to Canadians and give future “guests” (what Target calls its customers) a taste of what to expect when it opens its first 125 locations next year. Target Canada held beach party events in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta in August and weeks later made its Quebec debut by partnering with Montréal Fashion Week. For the latter, the retailer enlisted Quebec singer and style icon Mitsou Gélinas to conduct interviews in a branded media lounge and share her experience across its digital platforms and Canadian Facebook and Twitter pages.
“We do look market-by-market and do things that resonate well with the people in that market,” says Gibson.
Perhaps the most talked-about event was the one-day pop-up store in downtown Toronto with famed Canadian fashion designer Jason Wu that had shoppers waiting in line for hours. Wu’s collection of ultra-feminine designs ranged in price from $10 to $45 and sold out in approximately four hours. John Morioka, senior vice-president of merchandising for Target Canada, told Marketing at the time that the store was the perfect way to bring to life the retailer’s brand promise: expect more, pay less.
“Showing in subtle, cool ways that they respect the Canadian market and they want to be part of the Canadian market through these events is just a wonderful way of them saying ‘We know what the strengths of our brand are and we know how to apply them in market in a way that will make us relevant and engage people,’” says David Kincaid, founder and CEO of Level 5, a Toronto-based branding company.
“They haven’t come in beating their chest saying ‘We’re Target,’” says Kincaid. “They’ve come in saying ‘We want to bring value to you. We want to be important to you.’ And the fact they did it with large Canadian events like TIFF, they’re showing they understand the market and they want to be part of it.”
Though it hasn’t launched any mass advertising yet, Target Canada has still become one of the most buzzed-about brands of the year (and perhaps one of the most feared retailers ever to cross the border). National department stores and even grocery chains have been busy preparing for Target Canada’s arrival.
Target Canada remains tight-lipped about its upcoming plans for mass marketing and advertising (which will be developed by agencies within the MDC Partners network including KBS+P Canada, Veritas Communications and Boom Marketing; Aegis Group-owned Carat in Toronto is handling media buying duties).
But Target’s loyal fans know exactly what they want from the retailer they know and love. Morioka said Canadian shoppers often tell him to make sure Target Canada isn’t a “light version” of what they’ve come to expect from the retailer’s U.S. locations. Based on the marketing and merchandising efforts Target Canada has launched so far, we’re sure this pup’s bite will be as big as his bark.
To read more about the companies that made the Media Players of the Year and Marketers of the Year shortlists, check out Marketing’s Nov. 19 issue, which is on newsstands now.
