This spring, by simply shopping at Target, your life will improve. Your problems will dissolve and people will find you interesting and stylish. And if you are really lucky, your town will get a visit from the magic air balloon. Dancing people will flood the streets and turn everything from drab to fab. You will emerge from winter’s rest with style and grace. All your troubles will fade. At least this is what Target’s spring ad campaign wants you to believe. They illustrate changing clothing and home decor from beige tones to multi bright colors as great improvement, and happiness is achieved by everyone involved in the revitalization. But in fact, Target as a company could really care less about your happiness. Adding colorful items into your home and closet may brighten things up for a short while, but those colors will not change the details of your everyday life.
Target is a well known name in business. They offer great prices and their own generic brand, much like Walmart does, but they are know for having much more stylish items. Design is not an area they skimp on, even though they did drop the design agency Wieden + Kennedy New York after the commercial aired. They always have creative ad campaigns, and it was no surprise to see an interestingly stimulating commercial for their spring collection. I first saw the print ad in Lucky magazine. I was drawn to a cute dress and a pair of shoes featured in the ad. “Color Changes Everything” the ad read, and I believed it. I saw myself in the outfit and wanted to own it. I instantly believed in it’s power to transform and renew. I was drawn to the commercial after viewing it in class because of the power the magazine ad had.
It is no surprise that Target’s ad was so effective on me. I am exactly who they are marketing to. A woman in her twenties who likes clothes, looking cute, and affordable prices. Other people who they are marketing to are housewives, college students, and young professionals. Even young men fit within their ‘bullseye’ of potential shoppers. Having a strong focus on design, Target’s television commercial for spring 2012 “Color Changes Everything” is upbeat, fun, and draws you into the proposed illusion.
The Target commercial opens with a hot air balloon mysteriously floating down and landing on a city street. The French children’s song, “Alouette” starts gaining tempo as the balloon lands. Multitudes of male and female dancers leap out of the balloon basket, all wearing bright solid colors, much like clowns coming out of a clown car. The colorful Target people are shown running through the streets, jumping into second story windows, and magically changing plain grey tone items into bright colorful items. They jump next to someone on the street wearing faded fashions, and poof, they are transformed. Now they have a smile on their face, they are wearing colorful stylish clothes, and those around them look at them with admiration.
It is human nature to want to be admired and beautiful. Target knows exactly how to make you tap into this desire. Target claims that by purchasing colorful clothing and decor, you will brighten up your life and be happier. This claim of value is evident in how every person they show wearing beige tones is smiling and thrilled when their outfits are transformed to bright colorfully styled ones. The claim is also supported with how the commercial uses the three appeals of argument.
All three of the appeals of argument are apparent in the commercial. The logic appeal, logos, is not presented in a straight forward way, but through watching the commercial again, it becomes clear. Colorful items make you happy, Target has colorful items to buy, and if you buy colorful items from target then you will be happy. As for pathos, the commercial does not pull on your heart strings, but it does make you feel. The upbeat music, the dancing, the classy people and neighborhoods all communicate a part of the ‘american dream’ to the viewer. This is something we all want in one way or another. Happiness is something we all strive for, and each person will project their emotional interpretation of happiness on to the commercial. The credibility in this commercial, or the ethos, is Target themselves. They are a huge corporation and are well known to offer not only affordable items, but stylish ones. They play on their logo in the commercial, making the bullseye the imagine on the top of the hot air balloon. They also use current internet style language to make the format of the text look progressive, familiar, and credible.
The internet style language in the commercial and urban hipster-like style communicate the kairos. It makes the commercial current in popular culture. Examples of this language are “#targetcolor” and “@targetstyle.” Both of these phrases are in internet format. One speaks as though it is a twitter tag and the other as if it is an email address. By adding this text into the commercial, the ad gains a progressive edge, showing it is up with the times and current with a growing internet culture. From the transformed people to the home decor, the style of the commercial is a valid representation of style and where it is heading.
The color and style Target is offering it’s consumers is not as powerful as they would like you to believe. Adding color to your wardrobe or home will not change everything in your life. It will brighten things up for a short while, but it time, the newness wears off and those items loose their appeal and become old. And, as much as I would like to see colorful pixie-like dancing people running through the halls of UW-Parkside, changing dark faded colors into bright happy ones, this is not realistic. I admit, things like this happen in my imagination, but this is real life. And in real life, problems do not disappear after putting on a trendy shade of maroon.
True happiness is not achieved through the purchasing of items. It may do the trick for a short period of time, but the effect is not lasting. The underlining things that were hoped to be changed by the purchases will still be there. Adding colorful items into your home and closet may brighten things up for a while, but they will not change the details of your everyday life. I say, indulge in new clothes and housewares like Target wants you to do, but be aware, what you are trying to cover up or forget will surely be there after the colors fade.
This is the Target print ad that first interested me.
I still want the outfit pictured in the center of the ad.
This link is to watch for fun.
It shows how large and international Target is,
and how as a company they are focused on creative design.
Thanks for reading.
