Media Comparison

In today's world consumers no longer have to leave the comfort of their home to go shopping. With the advancement of the internet, consumers have a virtual mall at their fingertips with thousands of selections for thousand of different types of merchandise. However, with the help of advertising and marketing on the internet, online retailers are able to entice potential buyers from many different markets not previously available. Target is one of those retailers that have been able to utilize this technology.

Target, or Target Corporation, is a well known retail department store in the United States. The first target company opened its doors in 1962 in Roseville, Minnesota. (Target Corporation, 2006) A primary objective for Target was to provide consumers with high quality, discount merchandise. The department store had to provide choices for merchandise with competitive prices while maintaining a unique selection.

Target's popularity grew despite other discount retail department stores entering the market. Television advertisements and weekly specials in the newspaper accelerated Target's rise to the top as one of the leaders in the discount retailer industry. To continue their growth, Target turned their attention to utilizing technology, the internet, for the online shopping experience. For Target to be competitive in today's global shopping mall, advertising became a key element to drive consumers to the Target website as well as to the nearest store location.

The store locations offer a few standard media methods to advertise to consumers. The first method is using the television commercials to display products and sales. For Target, they chose a more creative measure to showcase not only the merchandise but the Target brand in commercials. The Target commercials are typically featuring the company logo of an archery bull's eye on every merchandise item including any humans or pets. This accompanies the display of the feature product with a theme song or jingle to emphasize the product. These creative adds force viewers to watch the commercial and become familiar with products while branding the logo into the memory.

Another method that Target uses to advertise to consumers is the use of weekly advertising specials in newspapers. The advertisements are printed in color with pictures, descriptions, and prices for the featured products. Target again uses the trademark logo to remind the consumer where the product is available. Consumers are able to keep the weekly printed advertisements to refer to throughout the week or in the future. This is especially helpful if a product is on sale or has a coupon.

In comparison, internet advertising is a combination of television commercial and printed advertisements. Consumers are able to view the available selections