Jan 14, 2008 11:55 pm US/Central
Target Ad Fuels Online Controversy
(WCCO)
-
-
The ad is part of a winter campaign depicting men and women interacting with the Target logo.
CBS
A Target Corporation branding campaign is stirring up online controversy because of a billboard which shows a woman, lying spread-eagle, on top of the Target billboard logo.
"I was very offended by it," said Minneapolis mother of two, Lisa Ray.
Ray is also the founder of Parents for Ethical Marketing, and she wrote about the billboard on her Web site, asking, "Is this what you meant by targeting women?"
"It surprised me that something that would come out of Target would be so blatantly sexist," she added.
The ad is part of a winter campaign depicting men and women interacting with the Target logo. One image shows a man ice skating on the logo, another shows a family sledding on the side of the bullseye.
"It's never our intention to offend any of our guests or the public," said Target spokeswoman Amy VonWalter. According to VonWalter, the company has only received one complaint about the ad.
A picture of a New York City billboard was uploaded to the
photo-sharing site Flickr on Jan. 6. That was picked up by a blog on marketing to children called
"Shaping Youth." That got Ray's attention, and she
wrote about it on her organization's Web site.
"I could not understand how anybody making an ad would put that together and not have one person in the room say, 'Wait a minute,'" said Ray.
"It's simply an advertisement with a woman making a snow angel, laying on our bullseye," according to VonWalter.
"There's no snow under her, I honestly didn't get the snow angel thing at first," countered Ray. "I personally am not shopping at Target anymore, I made that commitment, because of this ad."
Ray said her concern is the increasing number of sexualized advertising images in media campaigns. She said that because Target positions itself as a corporation that cares about the community, she holds Target to a "higher standard."
"One little ad by itself may not mean anything, but you have ad after ad after ad," said Ray.
VonWalter said that while she respects "everybody's opinion" in her view the ad is "absolutely not" offensive.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
