Halloween fun at Target!

Look, we love Target as much as the next person who finds that it's oddly comforting to walk down aisle after fluorescent-lit aisle, knowing that everything we need--from food to furniture for your college dorm to designer apparel--is all available in one location at a relatively low price. For instance, one time in college we went to Target and bought a frozen turkey, a giant bouncy ball and a B.B. gun, and then drove to a field for Target target practice. (We kept the turkey in the car and ate it later.)

So in terms of mega-chains, Target is tops, no question. We do have some question, however, about its new advertising techniques. Such as:

Part 1: Why a shoppable video? And why would a web video need a "trailer" with Kristen Bell and Will Smith's girlfriend from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? And who is Zachary Abel?

http://youtu.be/VWuMOKkMQSQ

Is it a web series? Can you buy stuff directly from the video by clicking on a character? Is this the future?

Part 2:

REALLY? Don't get us wrong, American Horror Story is great fun, and Jessica Lange deserved that Emmy, never mind the haters. But unless you want to be confused for the gimp from Pulp Fiction all night, this is the worst Halloween costume we've ever seen.

Congrats! Your little girl got beat up

We here at The New York Observer have no problem with the portrayal of little girls as kick-ass athletes. Break the glass ceiling! But this Target advertisement, found on the subway station at Carroll St. in Brooklyn made us a little uncomfortable.

Sure, this ad is showing a girl who is smiling and obviously happy with her trophy, implying that she is the victor of whatever Hunger Games karate class she's enrolled in. On the other hand, you have to wonder about the judgement of an agency that thinks that I bruised child will help sell peas.

It doesn't help that we originally thought that this was a poster for a charity for abused children. Or possibly next season's SVU.

More aisles than Walmart, Target, and Best Buy combined! (Courtesy of Electron Plumber)

Big isn't always better!

Best Buy did a monstrous belly flop in the pool of big retailers last Thursday, reporting a $2.6 billion quarter loss and sending tidal waves to similar retailers. Best Buy, along with many of its retailing rivals, is shifting their focus to opening smaller locations. We are facing down the end of the big box story, according to Bloomberg.

Target, Walmart, all are opening smaller stores, a recognition of changing demographics, a shift online and competition from one another as markets become saturated.

Lady Walmart, who is perhaps queen of the belly flop in local communities, has plans to build about 100 petite stores, Neighborhood Market, as well as 150 supercenters, about thirty more than they added in 2011, despite eight consecutive quarters of profit loss. The Neighborhood Markets have been seen as a strategy to break into dense markets like New York, going up against the Duane Reades of the world.

Still, the news of shrinking interest and sales can't help but cause wonderment at the fact that Walmart is somehow America's favorite retailer.

mewing@observer.com

The mystifying powers of a seemingly endless Visa credit limit and the bargain prices of Walmart! (Image Katu.com)

Fordham University published their Fourth Quarter 2011 V-Positive Report, which measures the Consumer Value Index. The methodology is based off of a few psychological theories that reflect the "understanding of the motivation to consume." In short: a thousand people are surveyed at the end of the year and answer several attributes for each of the seven domains.

The research is then used to measure and showcase the extent of which massive corporations impact our lives. The questions consider happiness, self esteem and physiological benefits to truly list the most beneficial and admired companies.

In terms of Societal V-Positive, which measures brand value across the United States, the most highly regarded companies were as follows:

• 1. Walmart
• 2. Facebook
• 3. Google
• 4. Visa
• 5. Yahoo!
• 6. McDonald's
• 7. Amazon
• 8. Coca-Cola
• 9. Microsoft
• 10. Target

It's relatively clear that Americans like a bargain with Target, Amazon, and Walmart taking three of the spots. They also like to consume calories, in the case of McDonald's and Coca-Cola. Yahoo! and Microsoft might be the most questionable of them all, but Google says enough by being ahead of them. Now, Visa is kind of unexpected, but who doesn't love spending money they don't have at all of these other fine establishments?

We have all of these in New York except for Walmart. Then again, do we really need another night club?

mewing@observer.com

Jason Wu-mania over at Target

Update: Target responds below!

Target: has a brand ever before fully encompassed Tina Brown's vision for a high/low cultural Utopia? Take for instance, the outlet's weekend release of its new Jason Wu collection just in time for New York's Fashion Week (for people who don't live in New York). The collection sold out across the country only hours after they hit the shelves, and pretty soon the items were popping up on Ebay for resale faster than you could say "This is worse than Versace doing H&M."

So what was the cause for this massive buyout? Apparently, couples like this:

Using techniques not seen outside of Black Friday or a Barney's Warehouse sale, these two Miami gentlemen bought an entire store's worth of Jason Wu, then gloated to other customers how they would be reselling their stock outside.

The police were allegedly forced to get involved after the man in the pair got into a shoving match with a woman in line after she tried to steal something from their cart. Why the store employees didn't rush these men and take back the carts themselves to distribute amongst the other customers has been a matter of much speculation, as Target is supposed to have a 2-item-per-style policy in place. (Since so many of the items immediately appeared on Ebay, we can only assume this policy wasn't enforced in a lot of stores.) The New York Observer has reached out to Target for comment, but has yet to hear back. This is not the first time Target has caused semi-riots with its designer labels: last fall, a Missoni collection launch caused Target.com to go dark when it was overwhelmed with online shoppers, meaning that people had to actually go out to their local target to purchase the hippy dresses.

Updated: A spokesperson from Target told the New York Observer that they did not enforce the quantity limit as a national store policy for the Jason Wu collection. "We did test limitations on Target.com, so people could only two items of any given item in a particular size, and some stores did elect to enforce the 2-item policy, but only in select locations."

Shop local... at Target. Mother New York

In a transparent effort to combat the bad publicity accrued in the wake of the shopping-cart incident, Harlem's Target store is hellbent on making sure New Yorkers know it truly, deeply, honestly and sincerely cares about the community. A Daily News article , which reads suspiciously like a PR statement, reports that the 117th Street Target is working to have a more "local feel."

The Daily News spoke to Stacia Anderson, a VP of merchandising at the company. A senior buyer in the "home" department, (you can thank her for your floral DKNY duvet set) Ms. Anderson has a profound understanding of the Harlem-based Target patron.

 

We work hard to make sure our guests have a consistent, positive experience in the store...It means having an assortment of products that’s on trend and speaks to our guests’ lifestyle, making it available at a great value and creating a store experience that creates the kind of brand love that makes guests instinctively say ‘my Target.'

But how exactly is that manifseted for the average Harlemite buyer? Cue line of commentary from the Daily News which impressively manages to cover almost every Harlem stereotype.

In Harlem, that means storage solutions, healthy foods, and Hispanic-focused merchandise such as religious wish candles.

Read: Harlem shoppers live in small spaces, eat unhealthy foods, and spend lots of money on religious parephernalia. Glad to see that corporate radar is so finely tuned.

eknutsen@observer.com

When representatives from Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, waltz into the New York Hilton for this year’s two-day International Council of Shopping Centers conference, many of the city’s most intrepid retail brokers will be close behind them, perhaps even plying those officials with compliments, dinner invitations and business opportunities.

The Category Killer.

So it goes for the 50-year-old, Arkansas-based retail chain, which since 2005 has continued to seek big-box space in New York City’s five boroughs despite thrice being spurned by the City Council, civic groups and labor unions upset with the company’s decision to roll back health care coverage for part-time workers and raise premiums for full-time staff.

As retail brokers told The Commercial Observer last week, however, the chain continues to draw flirtatious advances from agents attempting to land what, no doubt, would be one of the city’s biggest leasing assignments in years. Because the company has no dedicated real estate broker, most continue to send their love, some even on a weekly or monthly basis.

“They’re constantly calling them,” said Patrick Breslin, an executive vice president of East Coast Retail Services for Studley, who said he has observed colleagues fawn over Walmart executives. “It’s a relationship business.”

As for a dinner audience, however, Walmart has a stricter policy than other large-scale retailers, such as K-Mart or Target, according to brokers who said the chain has turned down dinner invitations due to a long-standing restriction.

“When it comes to accepting stuff, Walmart is one of the leaders in banishing that from the business,” said Mr. Breslin. “I was at a lunch once with some Walmart guys and a real estate developer who represented Walmart,” added Mr. Breslin.

“I was just tagging along. I just happened to be in the city that day, and he said come out for lunch with me. He went to pay the bill, and the two Walmart guys were whipping out their cash and checkbooks to pay their portion of the bill.”

Still, the chain came close in 2005 to setting up shop in a Vornado Properties-owned, 132,000-square-foot space in Rego Park, Queens, but it was met with swift opposition by City Council members and other public officials who decried its tendency to gobble up small mom-and-pop stores in its path. Walmart and Vornado eventually backed away from the plans.

Since then, other big-box retailers with less political controversy have opened up throughout the outer boroughs: Costco, Century 21, Kohl’s, B.J.’s Wholesale Club, Target, even German retailer Aldi.

In the meantime, Related Companies has reportedly been speaking with Wal-Mart about moving into a 650,000-square-foot site in its Gateway II shopping center in East New York, Brooklyn. The City Council and many public officials remain opposed to any such development, including State Senator Diane Savino, who has criticized the Related Companies for its Wal-Mart overtures.

Three other Queens politicians, meanwhile, sent a letter to Related chief executive Stephen Ross urging him not to bring the retailer to Gateway II or any other Related-owned New York City location.

In the meantime, a long line of brokers and landlords made overtures at a booth tended by Walmart at the ICSC conference on Monday, but most were referred to a representative of the chain’s “Real Estate Directors East” team, Mary Rottler, who, one Walmart representative said, “would be at the conference [Tuesday.]”

drosen@observer.com

Gaga is pulling her music out of the retailer's stores, as de Blasio happily tweets about it.

Next year, Target will re-release the best of their 17 designer collaborations featuring looks from Luella Bartley, Proenza Schouler, Libertine, and others. [Racked]

Nordstrom is opening a store on West Broadway. [The Real Deal]

A biopic of Isabella Blow is forthcoming with John Galliano and Philip Treacy linked to the project. [WWD]

Lara Stone has won the suit she filed against French Playboy for publishing unauthorized photos of her. [Vogue UK]

Winner of the Week: Chinese contemporary artist Zhang Xiaogang, whose 1993 painting Chapter of a New Century--Birth of the People's Republic of China II sold for $5.9 million in Hong Kong on Monday after a bidding war.

Loser: The many museums--Brooklyn Museum and MoMA among them--who rely on retailer Target for funds. The company gives 5 percent of its annual income away but just announced plans to double its commitment to education, pledging $500 million by 2015.

Look Who's Back: In-then-out New York portrait artist George Condo is back in; included in the Sotheby's "Divine Comedy" show and the star of a New Museum retrospective next spring. Real estate developer/art speculator Aby Rosen must be glad he took a position in Condo years ago, and has Condos on display at his W South Beach Hotel, 350 West Broadway and Core Club properties.

Next Week's Best Party: On Sunday and Saturday nights, DJ Spooky and choreographer Corey Baker team up at the Guggenheim for an art and performance project based on Jean Cocteau's bizarre 1930 film, The Blood of a Poet.