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[ # ] Target’s Undercover Facebook Operation
November 29th, 2007 under Facebook


Target has a team of “cool kids” called Target Rounders who earn points for talking about how cool Target is to their friends on Facebook. The quote below comes from a letter sent from Target to Rounder Rosie Siman before she decided to go public about the program after she grew uncomfortable with their tactics:

Target Update

Your mission: try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder. We love your enthusiasm for the Rounders, and I know it can be hard not to want to sing it from the mountaintops (and the shower, and on the bus…). However, we want to get other members of the Facebook group excited about Target, too! And we don’t want the Rounders program to steal the show from the real star here: Target and Target’s rockin’ Facebook group! So keep it like a secret!

I haven’t heard anything about this locally.

Be careful with aggressive Facebook marketing strategies. Does Target really need to run covert PR operations to get people to like them?

via Andy Sernovitz


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    Read the Comments

    [ # 3851 ] Comment from The Other Mike [November 30, 2007, 10:18 am]

    Insecurity is sad, especially when it is corporate. I’ve always been disgusted with marketing to youth, but covert marketing to youth seems really slimy…and a classic situation that will backfire when people realize how they are being tooled by the machine.

    [ # 3856 ] Pingback from Corporate Babysitter » Blog Archive » Hey, kidz! Lie to your friends and win an Ipod! [November 30, 2007, 1:40 pm]

    [...] Josh Hallett at Marketing Profs wonders why Target isn’t held to the same ethical standards as, say, Wal-Mart. Evidently Target (through an agency) broke one of the golden rules of word-of-mouth marketing: they told some of their WOMMers not to let their Facebook buddies know who they were. Odd that we haven’t heard much about this here at Target HQ in Minneapolis (except here). [...]

    [ # 3859 ] Pingback from More on Target Rounders » The Deets - Ed Kohler’s Blog [November 30, 2007, 3:20 pm]

    [...] Corporate Babysitter on Target’s Undercover Facebook Operation [...]

    [ # 3883 ] Pingback from Blogger Sees Red Over StarTribune’s Lack of Citation » The Deets - Ed Kohler’s Blog [December 1, 2007, 12:27 pm]

    [...] More on Target Rounders on Target’s Undercover Facebook Operation [...]

    [ # 3892 ] Pingback from Target Fucks Up On Facebook « Duck Duck Gray Duck - A Look At Marketing In Minnesota [December 1, 2007, 3:40 pm]

    [...] about Target and Target products but to make their affiliation with the Facebook group a “secret.” The Minneapolis StarTribune has reported on how this was done. Basically, college students [...]

    [ # 3938 ] Pingback from Target’s Facebook Blunder and Meta-Blog Turmoil « Rethink Democracy [December 4, 2007, 7:21 am]

    [...] old news already, I want to just briefly bring up the Target-Facebook scandal (read about it here, here and here) and point out that it’s yet another classic example of corporate America [...]

    [ # 3947 ] Comment from Tabz [December 4, 2007, 6:12 pm]

    I’m not surprised. But then again, I have a street team too…. ;)

    [ # 3949 ] Pingback from Ronin Marketeer » Evil Rising? Time for the Heroes to Shine [December 4, 2007, 8:36 pm]

    [...] Are you exploiting a social network? Considering Facebook your digital home is not the same as seeing it as a list to be harvested. Both could be considered “Right” not “Wrong” - the happy citizen likes a nice place to hang out, a person with a business plan is looking for the .01% of users that could be customers and has no concern or interest in the rest of the community. Check out this cool post about Target allegedly setting up an astroturf group. [...]

    [ # 4216 ] Pingback from » Target Snubs Offended Parent Who BlogsThe Deets - Ed Kohler’s Blog [January 14, 2008, 1:46 pm]

    [...] buy it. No questions asked. They don’t seem ready to engage their customers unless you call paying kids to say nice things about Target engaging. While their brand is clearly phenomenal, things like [...]

    [ # 4226 ] Comment from Shaping Youth [January 14, 2008, 5:45 pm]

    Tremors has been doing this for years with P&G, and street teams are a dime a dozen in trying to earn viral youth cred, but as a Target FAN (I love their design knock-offs) it irks me that they’re being so subversive about this…it’s the whole WOMM gig gone mainstream/big box…creating a cynical culture where you can’t even have a sleepover with tweens without wondering if someone’s hawkin’ for a corporate brand.

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