Way to go, Target

I thought I'd share this about Target in case some of you missed it. Earlier this month this 20ft ad was placed in Times Square. Amy Jussel, who is the founder of Shaping Youth, a blog that examines how media and marketing influence children, called Target to protest as she felt that placing a women's crotch at the center of a bullseye was an inappropriate message. Ms. Jussel was told the following via email: “Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets." A Target spokeswoman said that they do not work with bloggers.

Technorati, a blog search site, indexes over 112 million blogs and 120,000+ blogs are created worldwide each day. Does target not think that many of their customers are bloggers? Aside from that, to tell a customer you won't respond is bad business in my opinion. They did deign to speak with the New York Times , apparently they are traditional enough.

I started this post full of indignation about the slight to bloggers. As I read more & looked at some of the links on the Shaping Youth blog, I'm thinking my indignation was misplaced. Well, not entirely misplaced. Target is still the target (cute huh), but also advertising in general. I decided that I agree w/Ms. Jussel about the Target ad. It seems pretty innocuous but when you think about it as part of an overall pattern of advertising, I agree it is out of place. There is way to much advertising aimed at girls that is sending the wrong message. Shaping Youth has a link to an American Psychological Association report on the Sexualization of Girls that examines the impact of marketing on girls. I'd suggest looking at the blog & the report if you have kids.

I say kids, because it isn't just girls that suffer from marketing like this. If girls are taught to objectify themselves, boys are being taught to see them that way. I recently read a post about the Pink Gang, a group of women in India who have banded together to protect women from domestic violence. India, and many middle eastern countries have horrendous track records on how they treat women. Is the United States any better? Maybe we just dress it up better. Advertising works whether we like it or not. You can say that it can be ignored but it is difficult. Children today are constantly bombarded with advertising and I can't believe it isn't having a huge impact. I think we need to look pretty closely at what they are being told. What do you all think?

Robin