Target, Gen X, and the value of “overthinking”
2nd September 2006 by Sam Smith
A buddy of mine who works in the agency world made an interesting point when we were catching up the other week. He said that when you go to pitch something to Wal*Mart, the first thing they say is “you have to lower the price.” When you go to pitch Target, the first thing they say is “let’s see the packaging.”
If you’ve seen a Target ad (and if you haven’t, welcome to Earth) or walked through one of their stores, this tidbit makes perfect sense. Target is probably the most visually appealing department store experience ever, and that’s not an accident. Even their house brands appear in sculpted, colorful bottles and boxes, the very antithesis of the plain white generic packaging we remember from the ’80s. The average aisle feels like equal parts store and pop art gallery. Warhol would have loved it.
For those who think critically about brand strategy, though, the day that somebody in Minneapolis leaned back in a chair and said the magic words - “affordable design” - is less interesting than the deeper lessons of one of America’s most spectacular marketing successes. Affordable design was the how and the what, but the why had a lot more to do with nailing some important generational and class issues. I can’t say if this is what Target meant to do, or even if they’re aware of it. But make no mistake, the company is where it is because it crafted a brand message that’s perfectly encoded for the Generation X ear.
Meet X
In a nutshell, Target’s goal is to present customers with products that look expensive (reflecting their desire for nice stuff) but that are comparatively inexpensive (reflecting the reality of an increasingly tough economic landscape). You can get cheaper at Wal*Mart, but it looks Wal*Mart, too. And for the millions of GenXers on whom Target’s success has been constructed, looking cheap is an admission of defeat.
X, which encompasses those born from 1961 to about 1980, is unique in that its members were the first cohort in American history fated to have it worse than their parents. (See Howe & Strauss, 13th Gen, for a detailed explanation and analysis of the economic and social dynamics of the generation.) This was a gen that enjoyed a certain degree of economic comfort growing up (albeit nothing like we’ve seen with their successors, the Millennials), but a combination of factors (including skyrocketing real estate prices, obscene student loan debt loads, the professional longevity of the Baby Boomers - who refuse to retire and seem determined to live forever - and rapidly diminishing earnings potential vs. cost-of-living) exerted a broad downwardly mobile pressure that bred a significant crisis in consumer identity.
The front edge of X turned 25 in 1986 and the generational mid-point is currently in its mid-30s. Lay these stats over a chart tracking Target’s growth, and it becomes apparent that the company has enjoyed its most explosive success with X sitting in the demographic driver’s seat. If your Target is anything like mine, it’s full of adults ranging from mid-20s to mid-40s who are shopping for nothing quite so much as a safe psychological foothold in the dwinding middle class. While this group hardly represents all of the company’s customer base, no big box is going to thrive without 25-45s, right?
Hopes and Dreams
This particular group of young adults has a deep socio-psychic need for success. The first public awareness of GenX, which emerged in the early 1990s as its first wave hit 30 (appropriately enough, the archetypal Boomer confessional thirtysomething went off the in 1991) seemed almost uniformly framed by terms like “slacker,” a profoundly inaccurate and unfair depiction of a group fighting a decidedly uphill battle. X was forced by a parental generation - the “Me Generation,” a cohort responsible for significant social changes, but not one known for its nurturing - to stand on its own and it was encouraged to believe that success and failure were pretty much the exclusive result of personal factors. In essence, they were weaned on pure ideological Americana, except that they got a double-helping every day.
For these reasons, the appearance of success, visually expressed by style and design, are critically important to the generational psyche. Enter Target, a store that offered stuff that actually looked good but that was affordable. Budget chic, and booming returns for Target, which looks to be getting stronger by the day.
It’s Okay to Think
The best branding pros and organizations out there think intensely about these kinds of issues. They think qualitatively as well as quantitatively, because they recognize the limited value of datasets that are a mile wide and an inch deep.
Sadly, people who think to this extent are the exception and not the rule. I’ve been in situations where I was compelled to give my clients B-grade work because those calling the shots, driven by short-sighted cost concerns instead of long-term value propositions, insisted that we didn’t have time to “overthink everything.” Generational dynamics were one of the specific things I was discouraged from overthinking, and innovative media angles were another.
What I see of marketing and branding campaigns, as well as my conversations with a wide range of industry professionals, convinces me that “don’t overthink” is standard operating procedure in most shops, and not a day passes when I don’t see at least one company that could benefit substantially from a seriously cost-inefficient lock-up to consider the story of their customers’ lives.
I’ve never read that Target accomplished all this as a function of intent, but even if it was a blind stroke of pure luck there are still important lessons to be learned by marketers charged with translating potential into results. Think deep. Think long. Think big. The value generated by your insights will dwarf the costs associated with “overthinking,” guaranteed.
September 5th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Great article and although the point is really about Target I particularly like the part
“slacker,” a profoundly inaccurate and unfair depiction of a group fighting a decidedly uphill battle.
I can’t tell you how sick I am when the so called “Greatest Generation” or their off spring state that “their generation really WORKED for a living.”
Meanwhile when I was working 50 hours a week, going to school full time, and interning at night. I wasn’t offered a job that could support a family straight out of high school like so many in those generations. Sure I may not want to work in a factory, but if the opportunity arises I would take it. I don’t feel that the job is beneath me, I just feel the wages are. After all, I was already in debt before I bought car or a house. Not from credit cards, drugs, or gambling, but from that pesky little vice everyone needs education. I actually have a 30 year period to pay off student loans. Basically a second mortgage for a piece of paper that guarantees nothing. But maybe I’m just bitter, after all these were the people that told me to go to college so I didn’t have to work those jobs.
September 25th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Pick up the book “On Target - How The World’s Hottest Retailer Hit a Bullseye” by Laura Rowley.
It’s a short read and gives you an incredible story about how the Target brand, born from the Dayton Hudson family, has grown but not really evolved per say: their values and stake/care in community/environment is baked into the entire organization and has made the company supersede the simple goal of “inexpensive brand fashion”. Moreover, it takes you on a journey in retail and about a family’s values and dreams for serving people, community and environment.
In all, I widely respect a company like this in a day/age where profits prevail. You know, I’m sure they make their mistakes and have their issues/waste, but I’ve never read about such a respectable, integrated and long-standing approach to business communications. Profits, programs, community, empowering employees to find solutions, and environmental conscientiousness - they integrate it all into their strategic plans.
Peace.
Rebecca
September 25th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Thanks - I’ll check it out. I don’t know much about Target from an inside perspective - I’m sort doing a “fan” analysis here, the same way I might read pop culture if I were still doing the academic thing - and I think a firmer grip on the history would be really helpful for me.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
As I sit in my Chicago office looking out on Lake Michigan, I see a white sailboat glide by with a red Target logo on it. Now there’s an innovative branding medium. I bet somebody put some deep thought into that one and volunteered to take the tiller.
November 20th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Accurate or not, this is an awesome quote: “If your Target is anything like mine, it’s full of adults ranging from mid-20s to mid-40s who are shopping for nothing quite so much as a safe psychological foothold in the [dwindling] middle class.”
I also think there’s another important aspect to the “affordable design” vibe at Target. One might call it “the commoditization of hipness.”
Starbucks was perhaps the leading edge of this. For example, in late 1980s Chicago, one could go to several “cool” independent coffee houses in the city. The closest thing to a chain was a small local group of them called “Coffee Chicago.” Another place, Scenes, was part coffee house and part film bookstore.
Now Scenes is gone, many of the Coffee Chicago’s are gone, several others are gone. Starbucks and Caribou killed most of them. But what Starbucks did was commoditize this hipness and spread it out deep into the exurban landscape.
A long stream of commoditized hipness followed: Borders and B&N cafes, Panera Bread Company, the redesigned Boston Market, all the way down to McCafe.
Now everyone gets to be “hip” — and there’s plenty of free parking.
The rise of commoditized hipness directly correlates to Gen X growing up into the 25-45 demo.
Also, anyone interested in Generation X needs to read the book that started it all: “Generation X” by Douglas Coupland. Before that, we were called the “baby bust.”