The Intro:
This specific 2012 Target commercial is presenting Taylor Swift's album Red that was released October 22,
2012. Red is Swift's fourth studio album and its first week sales of $1.21
million was the third biggest debut in history for a female artist and became
the fastest selling album in over a decade.
Although Swift is known for being a country artist she is quickly making
her way to being a pop artist with her album Red and her newest album 1989.
The Author:
The
company name is Target and the founder of Target is George Dayton. Target
was originally called Dayton Company. After George died
in 1938, his sons and grandsons took over and grew the Dayton Company and on
May 1, 1962 Target's grand opening was in Roseville, Minnesota. Target
Commercial Interiors are the company that makes Target's advertisements.
The Audience
The intended audience is teen girls because Swift's music is more country/pop so that really
appeals to young girls. Advertising appeals are used in the commercial
because Taylor Swift is the main focus of the ad to begin with which appeals to
mostly everyone because she is a popular artist
Another
reason why this ad appeals to teenage girls is because they like the pop music,
the lyrics in the songs because most of Swift's songs are about relationships,
whether they are good relationships or the lyrics could be about breakups, so
most teenage girls can relate to that, and they look up to Taylor as a role
model because she is a well known pop artist around the world and she is modest
and classy which teenage girls parents like. The parents know that they
can let their teenage daughter listen and be into Taylor Swift because she is
an overall well liked person and she presents herself well wherever she goes
and does not wear a lot of makeup. The Polaroid
camera and pictures theme with the 1989 album
also appeals to teenage girls because that vintage stuff is in right now along
with Swift's signature red lipstick that
she almost is always wearing.
The Text
The
Red commercial starts off with Taylor
opening the doors to a big white room as she is singing one of the songs off of
the album Red called "Red".
Then she pulls on a red curtain and it reveals the walls of the room to be
painted red and the curtains fall in a circle surrounding Taylor as she twirls
around singing. The main colors of the commercial are red and
white. At the end of the commercial there is an over voice of a woman
announcing exclusive songs on the Red
album available at Target only and that you can get it Monday. I think
the commercial has similarity with Target because Target's colors are red and
white which also goes along with the theme of Taylor's album and I do not think
this commercial would have been good if it was a Walmart commercial instead of
Target. Plus the fact that you get additional songs included on the album
just makes everyone want to go buy this album from Target and not Walmart, Best
Buy, etc. because you get more on the album for the same price you would be
paying at the other stores.
Another
Target commercial shows Taylor Swift's release of her most recent album called 1989, which was released on October 27,
2014 and is put under the genre "synthpop". 1989 is
Swift's fifth studio album and this album was success debuting at number one on
the US Billboard 200, selling, 1,287,000
copies. The album also became the
highest sales week since 2002 and made Swift the first artist to have three
albums sell a million or more copies in a week as well as becoming the best-selling
album released in 2014. Swift named this
album 1989 because she was born in
the year 1989. This is quite a clever
name for her fifth album and it relates to her on a kind of personal level
because not only was 1989 the year she was born but also the songs on the album
in general describes her and how she is with relationships, going through
breakups, etc.
This
commercial is similar to the Red commercial
because they both have the theme of red and white which are Target's colors.
The commercial begins with a plain red background and different Polaroid
pictures of Taylor doing random things like singing on stage, blowing bubbles,
dancing, and taking a picture of herself with a Polaroid camera.
Throughout the whole thirty second ad, she is singing one of her songs off the 1989 album called "Style".
Then the same plain red background comes up and a single Polaroid picture
of the cover of her 1989 album is in
front of the red background and then another Polaroid picture pops up next to
the cover album Polaroid of a piece of paper that has "+ 3 extra
songs" and "+ 3 songwriting voice memos" written on it, showing
that this exclusive offer is only available at Target. The commercial
ends with one last Polaroid of just the Target logo and written at the bottom
is the words "#moretaylor", so anyone can go and tweet on the social
media site Twitter about either seeing the commercial or just simply saying
that you bought the album from Target and use the hash tag
"#moretaylor" in your tweet.
The fact
that you can get never before music additions to the Red and 1989 album makes
everyone want to go and purchase the albums from Target because they get a
better deal in addition to more than one song and in the 1989 album it includes 3 extra songwriting voice memos. Plus customers who purchase the deluxe album
at Target are paying the same price, unless put on sale, as they would be
paying if they went to, for example, Walmart.
Conclusion:
Target will be
getting more customers because they offer exclusive tracks on certain artists
albums such as Taylor Swift. Because not
only do you get the original songs released onto the album but you also get the
additions like new songs, songwriting voice memo, and/or exclusive photos just
for the price that it would be at Walmart or any other store that sells the
album. So you would be paying the same price as Walmart is selling it for at
Target and getting exclusive extras, that just draws in customers because they
get more for their money and it is being advertised on television on Target's
commercials so that attracts more customers.
Listening to Swift's fourth and fifth albums, I think it is safe to say
that she has moved onto being a pop artist even though Swift herself described her 1989 album as being her
"first documented official pop album".
Works Cited:
www.youtube.com
https://corporate.target.com/about/history/Target-through-the-years
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/taylor-swift
