Free Blog- Target Commercials

For our free blog, I decided to pick the Target tv commercials. I picked a commercial from 2006, and a commercial that started running in late 2007 and is still running in 2008.

The Target commercial that ran in 2006 was mostly just using Target's logo of a red and white target. The song played during the commercial was "Sign of the Times," and everything in the commercial was decorated with the Target logo, such as people's shirts, food, and furniture. I think this was a really good way to get the name brand out there. In 2006 Target was still new in certain areas of the United States, so this had consumers curious about the new catchy commercials and what Target had to offer.

The Target commercial that ran in 2007 and is still running in 2008 are 3 or 4 similar commercials using a song "Hello, Goodbye." The commercials running are all similar because they are very glamorized with shots that look "high fashion" meaning very stylized and almost choreographed scenes. Most of the shots contain the words "Hello" and then "Goodbuy" which is a clever play on words. These commercials don't really show any product names, but it lets the viewer assume that Target has all of the random products shown.

I like both of these commercial campaigns because it shows that people can be interested in a store name or product without a commercial repeating over and over "SALE" on such and such product. I also like that although Target is compared to Wal-Mart, Target shows that they may be more prominent and classy by using advertising techniques such as these commercials, that never announce that anything is low price.

2006 commercial advertisement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B_cOIP9Qog&feature=related

2007/2008 commercial advertisement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmyi-aGq6ZE&NR=1

Society Emulates Advertising

Society emulates Advertising because I beleive that our society feels an incredible need to fit in, and standards are usually set by forms of advertising in mass media such as the internet, tv, magazines, and newspapers. Society wouldn't come up with their own ideas without some kind of influence first. Athough some people may say it is a cycle, I think it has to start with advertising because when trends start, it isn't because of someone walking down the street, it's from some form of advertisement that made an impact on a large amount of people.

An example of a recent trend started by advertising is something like "touch screen" phones, such as the iPhone and Voyager. These types of phones wouldn't have such a buzz about them if they were not widely advertised. Most of these phones are expensive, and not enough people would have them to get a trend started by word of mouth.