Wars” extravaganza, Bullseye lounged at a private spa outside Los Angeles, soaking in a bath, sprawling out for a massage and offering up her padded feet for a pedicure.
Bullseye, played by a 7-year-old bull terrier, is one of three dogs who take turns as the retailer Target’s roly-poly mascot. Her beauty regimen, her trainer explained, was part of preparations for a “Star Wars”-themed shopping event.
At the city’s dazzling L.A. Live venue, Bullseye posed with Darth Vader, occasionally yelping and wagging her whip of a tail. A trainer and a makeup artist stood by, ready to calm with a snack or quickly touch up her hallmark red eye makeup, as throngs of smartphone-wielding fans closed in for pictures.
Photo“It’s long training to get Bullseye used to noises and groups of people — and to sit on a bench, spin in circles, look exuberant,” said David McMillan, who has trained four Bullseyes since 2001 for Target. Two have been rescue dogs.
It has been several years since Target featured Bullseye as anything more than a bit part in its promotions. But the dog has re-emerged this season as a signature part of the company’s efforts to revive its marketing magic after years of fading cachet.
The retailer is transforming its so-called first impressions area at the front of its stores — once a space strewn with discount bins and grab-and-go baubles — into Bullseye’s Playground, featuring blown-up Bullseye dolls and a carefully chosen selection of seasonal merchandise.
Since last year, Target has also installed Bullseye benches at more than 1,400 stores, where shoppers can pose with a replica Bullseye for a selfie. (The hashtag #TargetDog on Instagram now returns a stream of Target shoppers happily petting the plastic Bullseye figurine.)
And for the first time in over a decade, Bullseye stars in several Target ads, including one featuring “Star Wars” storm troopers and another thatpromotes a Christmas digital storybook app for children. And she was a regular at Target’s recent winter wonderland pop-up store in New York.
“We started thinking about how to bring Bullseye to more people,” said Jeff Jones, Target’s chief marketing officer. “It’s a fun dog, so scrappy and fearless.”
Though essentially in the same line of business as Walmart, Target has long managed to escape the scorn and scrutiny directed at its much larger competitor for its sometimes disorderly shelves and worker conditions, thanks to its slick marketing, cheerful store signs and buzzy collaborations, like the recent smash-hit Lilly Pulitzer line of clothes and accessories.
But the recession, and the chill it sent over consumer spending, prompted the retailer to tone down its marketing and emphasize value over chic, and its cachet has not quite rebounded. Bullseye largely fell by the wayside, mostly relegated to appearing on the retailer’s gift cards.
Target’s “Expect More, Pay Less” formula is facing competition from even deeper discounters like T. J. Maxx and Ross Stores, while fast-fashion retailers like H&M and Zara are encroaching on Target’s turf.
The retailer’s net earnings, which hit more than $3 billion in the early 2000s, have slumped. Last year Target booked a loss of $1.6 billion because of losses from its since-abandoned disastrous foray into Canada.
Now, Target is ramping up its marketing spending, part of a turnaround push by its chief executive, Brian Cornell, who joined the retailer from PepsiCo last year.
A big focus has been on digital advertising, which the retailer has said makes up about 60 percent of its media spending, compared with just a fraction five years ago. Over all, Target is estimated to have spent almost as much as Walmart on advertising in the first nine months of the year — $335 million versus $367 million — even though Target’s sales are less than a quarter of Walmart’s, according to Kantar Media.
The longest-serving Bullseye, now 13, is a rescue dog called Nikki who recently retired from the Target circuit after a 10-year career. She now spends her days on Mr. McMillan’s ranch in Santa Clarita, Calif., where he raises dogs, bears and other animals, mostly for the movie industry.
Bullseye is the rare corporate mascot regularly played by a real animal, with the notable exception of the Aflac duck or the Budweiser Clydesdale horses. (Other animal mascots pose logistical challenges, like Geoffrey the Giraffe at Toys “R” Us or Tony the Tiger for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes.) And Bullseye stands out as a distinct, instantly recognized mascot among retailers, trumping Walmart’s rarely seen Sparky mascot or the short-lived Mr. Bluelight at Kmart.
The bull terrier is also a brave choice and a rare turn in the spotlight for a breed originally bred in Britain for dogfighting, a dog with the reputation of a canine gladiator that would fight to the death to please a master. Recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1885, the breed gained notoriety in the United States after Pete, a bull terrier owned by President Theodore Roosevelt, nipped so many visitors’ legs that he was exiled to the Roosevelt home in Long Island.
Still, the bull terrier has been featured in several TV shows and movies, including the 1968 musical “Oliver!” based on the Dickens novel. Another bull terrier mascot, Spuds MacKenzie, became a sensation in the late 1980s for his appearances in Super Bowl ads, but was eventually retired after parents’ groups alleged that Anheuser-Busch used the dog’s image to market beer to children.
At Target, the original Bullseye was a bull terrier named Arielle. She debuted in Target’s 1999 “Sign of the Times” TV spots and billboards, which reinterpreted Target’s red-and-white bull’s-eye logo as a pattern for dresses and plush interiors, and also painted a red bull’s-eye around Arielle’s eye. By not portraying a specific product, the campaign diverged greatly from traditional retailer ads at the time, and helped differentiate Target as a chic, even whimsical retailer.
For the next decade, Nikki did the bulk of the work as Bullseye, making appearances at store openings as far away as Hawaii, attending Target fashion shows, strutting the red carpet at Target’s Oscar night events and rubbing noses with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Clint Eastwood. (For most flights, Bullseye gets her own seat in first class, because at 18 inches tall at the shoulder and 45 pounds she is too bulky for a coach seat. Her wardrobe includes bootees, a tux for formal events and a Minnesota Twins baseball jersey.)
But with Bullseye playing a bigger role in marketing, Mr. McMillan has brought on two more bull terriers — two female dogs, Suki, age 7, and Gigi, age 3 — and has two more in training. None of the terriers are related, he said.
The Bullseye advertising blitz this year has paid off for Target. According to Socialbakers, the social media analytics company, Target ads made up four of the top 10 most-viewed YouTube ads between Nov. 1 through Dec. 14. “What breed is the Target dog?” was one of the most popular dog-related searches this year, according to Google.
Getting Bullseye used to wearing a storm trooper helmet took some training, Mr. McMillan said. “It covered her eyes. She had to get used to looking through the glass, instead of peering out from under it,” he said.
But most arduous, Mr. McMillan said, was the red bull’s-eye makeup, which takes up to four hours — with many breaks in between — to apply. “It goes on in layers in order to get that brilliant Target red on the white fur,” he said. (The makeup is of the pet-safe vegetable kind, according to Target.)
All Bullseyes are now heading into a post-holiday, well-earned vacation, Mr. McMillan said. “We don’t want them going crazy. They just need to relax.”
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