The Blog DoggerTarget shuns bloggers and almost pays the price

The retailer refuses to talk to bloggers and later examines this policy, plus how YouTube and Facebook help predict the outcome of presidential primaries. Audio

The retailer refuses to talk to bloggers and later examines this policy, plus how YouTube and Facebook help predict the outcome of presidential primaries

An interesting thing happened in the blogosphere earlier this month: Bloggers took a story about sex and made it into a lesson about corporation communication.

The players in this little episode are big-box retailer Target; Amy Jussel, the executive director of advertising watchdog group Shaping Youth; and bloggers.

Target launched an ad with a young woman lying spread-eagle on a Target symbol—from the look of the picture, the target is the woman’s … ahem … you get the point. On Jan. 8 Jussel called foul on Target through her organization’s blog, ShapingYouth.org. “The universal issue is sexualized ad slop, and how we need to just freakin’ stop it,” she wrote. “Does anyone care kids’ psyches are being trashed?”

Jussel contacted Target for comment on the ad and she received this response:

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