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College Student, Urban Opps: Target taps new marketing DM amid ad spend increases (Score 58)

This month, Target appointed Maurice Cooper, the former chief growth and experience officer at Wingstop, as brand and category marketing SVP. Reporting to chief marketing, digital and strategy officer Rick Gomez, Cooper now spearheads marketing responsibilities such as brand strategy and execution, along with category and promotions advertising via paid, owned and shared media. Additionally, he will direct campaigns during key seasons such as the holidays.

According to iSpot, Target's current national TV commercials target (you're welcome) Gen-Z and millennials with a skew toward women, particularly moms watching TV with their kids, with top targeted programs including SpongeBob SquarePants, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Good Morning America, The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons -- Ever! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. A YTD national TV spend of around $180m marks a % increase from the roughly $156.7m spent by this point last year. Target's full 2019 spend grew slightly (%) to $334.5m from $327.8m in 2018.

Similarly, Adbeat estimates the company allocated $96.9m toward digital display from September 2019-2020, up % from the $68.9m spent from September 2018-2019. Most of the past year's spend went toward YouTube videos ($15.2m) and programmatic ads via Google DV360 ($6.7m) and Google Display Network ($4.5m). Google DV360 placed ads onto sites such as healthline.com ($1.5m) yahoo.com, accuweather.com, fandom.com and bbc.com; Google Display Network's top publishers included phc.com ($789.9k), whowhatwear.com, yahoo.com, wwe.com and worldometers.info.

Target typically spends highly throughout the year, with its spend spiking in Q4 ahead of the gift-giving holiday season. Its target demographic primarily consists of Gen-Z and millennials, particularly college students and moms in urban areas, so it may utilize additional digital channels such as paid social and/or OTT. Kantar data reports it also invests in local broadcast, OOH, print (English and Spanish newspapers) and radio.

Agency & martech readers - Reach out soon to see if any work is available under Target's new DM. The company consolidated PR work with Essence (digital assistance). Target also has an in-house creative team.