Objectives

Through social listening we learned that during Valentine’s Day guests refer to Target as a person versus a place, directly mentioning us as their “bae”. Based on this insight we set out to become the proxy for real-life love to all guests, regardless of relationship status. 

Strategy and Execution

THE STRATEGY 
To allows guests to share their love for their true Valentine, we: 

1. Partnered with six meme accounts, better known for poking fun at both single and married life, to kick-start a UGC challenge. 
   • DietStartsTomorrow
   • KaleSalad
   • InstaSingle
   • MyTherapistSays
   • BoyWithNoJob
   • GirlsThinkImFunny
      
2. Showcased the love that is found in our stores, re-sharing various stories from meeting at Target to proposals and weddings. 
    
3. Highlighted our wide-selection of gifting items.
    
4. Ensured the hashtag franchise and challenge were broad enough to live beyond Valentine's Day. 
    

#TARGETBAECHALLENGE
The social challenge called for guests to snap a photo of themselves “holding hands” with their cart that is curated for either:

• Existing bae

• Dream bae 

• Or products that represent that Target is their bae.
   

In addition, we created a set of 13 complementary GIF stickers for guests to place on their challenge submissions, Target date nights, and beyond. 

Results

By the end of February we garnered 757 public posts using #TargetBaeChallenge, and 51.2MM organic impressions on owned content. Our partnered meme with @MyTherapistSays is the fourth most engaged Target Instagram post of 2019, and our partnered meme with @kalesalad is the fifth most engaged Target Facebook post of 2019. Post Vday, our #TargetBaeChallenge hashtag and GIF stickers were used by guests throughout the year.

Media