Target’s online marketing executives would be forgiven for popping a few
Dramamine pills while enduring the ups and downs of the past two weeks.
This week is a high point — at least so far. The Minneapolis-based retailer released a new version of its iPhone app with a freshened-up design and improved functionality. Top tech blogs took approving note of this.
Last week was a low point — very low.
The company got savaged on social media and in the blogosphere for a radical redesign to its main site, Target.com. Hardly anyone seemed to like the new look, notable for its drop shadows and other busy elements, and many loathed it.
“trainwreck redesign of the year: target.com,” said @jimsilverman on Twitter.
“Which one of you monsters did this to target.com ?? SHOW YOURSELF,” said @johnwilliams713
Many critics focused on those drop shadows, which give windows on the Target site a 3-D flavor at a time when interface design (including that of the retailer’s iOS app) is going flat.
“SHOP UNTIL YOU DROP (SHADOW),” said @DUQE.
“Holy drop shadow,” said @kellyclaws. “Target is bringing back the middle ages of web design.”
The Target site has been headed in the wrong direction for a while, said the Minneapolis Egotist, a blog focused on advertising and marketing.
“Target has been slowly shifting their website from a clean, minimal, and ‘on brand’ design to something that looks more like a cluttered mess of product callouts in an what we assume is an attempt to grab more online sales,” a Monday post at bitly.com/egotistontarget said.
“Then, in recent weeks, the retailer made their biggest aesthetic shift yet with the introduction of even more products, thin product ads, a serif typeface, and some of the darkest drop shadows that we’ve seen in the last decade of web design,” the Minneapolis Egotist went on. “In short, it’s really bad … and the world has taken notice in a very negative way.”
Target, in a statement, said: “Over the last two weeks we have unveiled several new home pages on Target.com to support the increased number of deals on our site this holiday season. User testing prior to launch, and actual site traffic and sales performance since, have been very positive.
“We plan additional changes to our design and features and will track guest response and make adjustments along the way,” the company added.
The last few months have been busy ones for Target as it careens into the holiday shopping season.
Which brings us to the high-point in the online roller coaster ride — Target’s apps.
In May, Target released Cartwheel, a new digital-savings program with a companion app for iOS and Android devices that is separate from Target’s main iOS and Android app.
Cartwheel, with social-media and game-like elements, incorporates shopping deals found nowhere else. The service on Wednesday will offer 30 one-day-only specials available exclusively through Cartwheel, for instance.
These specials include 40 percent off a Dyson vacuum cleaner and a Rachael Ray 15-piece cookset, and 50 percent off a T-Fal 20-piece nonstick cookset.
Target claims Cartwheel has been a success, with nearly 3 million users saving more than $16 million. The Target service is a high-profile collaboration with Facebook.
The recent update to Target’s primary iPhone app brings its design aesthetic in line with Apple’s radically retooled iOS 7 mobile operating system and a slew of third-party apps that have already embraced the flattened and translucent new look.
The new app also incorporates improved functionality, such as a beefed-up shopping-list feature, a “what’s in store” feature that points shoppers to good deals while they’re inside Target stores, and the option to spot Cartwheel deals and transfer these to the Cartwheel app.
Target said the app will work “in select stores in Minneapolis, Seattle and Chicago,” and in all of its compact CityTarget urban stores. The app’s improved mapping will not work in all areas yet.
Target’s holiday-themed initiatives include a tie-in with the popular Pinterest social network, price-matching and in-store-pickup efforts, and promotions related to its prominent, popular REDcard charge card.
In a two-day promotion starting Tuesday, for instance, Target is offering REDcard holders more than two dozen “doorbuster” themed discounts.
Saint Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
(c)2013 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)
