Monday, November 22, 2004Oops... Here is the link for the Hewitt post on Fallujah and the NBA (mentionned 2 posts down).And Hewitt is beginning to sound a little more careful on the Target matter: This is also Target's problem, for these new [exurban, more traditionalist] communities with church and family at their heart are very generous and also very sensitive to the antipathy of cultural elites, and judging from what I was told by two audiences of more than 600 on Friday and Saturday night, and from my e-mail, Target has deeply offended a significant portion of these new communities of faith and family. (By no means all, of course, and some aren't bothered in the least, but Target isn't gaining any customers from exiling the Salvation Army, only losing them.) Target may not have acted out of antipathy, but because its action matches so much of the anti-Christian tenor of the times, it is being categorized as among that group determined to whitewash the public square of religious belief. (Read the post and comments at CrookedTimber to understand why this merging occurs.) It doesn't have much time to change course as consumer patterns, once shifted, will be hard to reconstruct. E-mail guest.relations@target.com --polite, please-- and urge them to allow the bell ringers back on Friday through Christmas. (my emphases)Target does, of course, have a real problem if it is perceived as not being of the communities in which it operates, or worse, contrary to them. It has handled the p.r. badly. But it is not necessarily the anti-Christ, come to abolish all that's good from the land. It is a business that made a call for its own reasons and apparently blew that call. It is nice to see the "polite, please" warning and that little bit of nuance, suggesting that what is thought of Target's move is a matter of perception, not simple fact. I hope for the sake of Target's employees that this ends with the folks who made the call having some 'splainin' to do to the stockholders, not with those who rely on its seasonal jobs to do Christmas shopping or pay the higher heating bill for winter out of work. (We can play the "vale of tears" card too...) 
posted by gbarto at 3:22 PM |
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