Today, Target Corp premiered the first episode of their three part "shoppable" film entitled Falling for You. I know this because I fell for it. Just the way Target would have wanted, I discovered the socially-shareable branded content through a system of integrated digital marketing channels, and ended up making a purchase I hadn't expected when I woke up this morning. The experience also left me wondering if I had caught a glimpse into the future of advertising.
Pure marketing genius.
Here's how it happened. I first heard about the project about a week ago when a friend of mine posted a link to a NY Times blog on Facebook,
The blog described the project, a twelve-minute romantic comedy featuring over 100 products from Target's fall line that viewers could buy directly from the video player. Because I work in digital marketing, this intrigued me. It sounded like Target had created a sort of commercial/movie/product-placement hybrid. I was curious as to what that would look like, and what such a production could mean for the future of advertising.
From the Times blog, I followed another link to a subdomain (fallingforyou.target.com) on Target's website where this morning the first installment of the series was released.
Starring Hollywood actors Kristen Bell, Nia Long, and Zachary Abel, the spot tells the story of two young professionals working at Target tasked with planning a fall style event. Throughout the video, everything you see, including fashion accessories, beauty products, and household items, are available for purchase directly from your computer's media player.
I happened to really like one of the dresses Kristen Bell held up during a sequence when she was trying to pick out an outfit. I immediately turned my attention to the right-hand side of the player, and there it was: by simply clicking a "heart" button, I added the dress to "my favorites." After the video ended, I was able to access my favorites in a format that resembled the very highly-visual Pinterest. From there, I was able to select a size and color and add the dress to my cart.
It wasn't until I clicked the "check out" button, that I actually left the movie's subdomain to return to Target.com. Of course, once I had checked out, I had the opportunity to share my purchase with friends.
While I may have just as easily decided to purchase this dress or any other product from the film in a store, or online, I found something incredibly appealing about seeing people interacting with the merchandise the in the way the video depicted. Moreover, odds are I wouldn't have purchased that dress at all, as it was not "top of mind" when I woke up this morning.
The agencies behind the production, Minneapolis-based Olson and space150, have figured out how turn "brand," in this case Target, into reality. Target personified is bright, youthful, and functional. Blurring the lines between brand and reality, the video gave us a glimpse of how Target might look in our everyday lives, rather than in some fantastical world that we often see in commercials.
Target's Falling for You project is a perfect example of a beautifully-executed integrated digital marketing strategy in which social, search, content, and ecommerce all exist within the same realm to create relevancy and context for the user. Without these elements working together, the video wouldn't serve its purpose.
As brands experiment with more innovative ways to engage their audience without coming across as pushy, this type of branded content may very well be a window into the future of advertising.
Logo Courtesy of Target