An Earth day extravaganza

It’s Earth Week at Target, and the retailer pegged a week-long promotional and consumer education campaign to Earth Day on Thursday, April 22. The retailer devoted eight pages in the center of this week’s circular to various Earth Week initiatives including eco-friendly products that conserve resources and reduce waste, a hybrid sweepstakes, an offering of “eco-smart” products and two pages that listed Target’s various sustainability accomplishments. Two pages were also devoted to a recycling initiative, in which Target partnered with TerraCycle. Customers were encouraged to use the circular pages as a prepaid mailing pouch in which to enclose five shopping bags in exchange for a $1-off coupon to use toward the purchase of a reusable shopping bag, which normally retails for $1.49.

Earth Day, or in Target’s case, Earth Week, has become quite the promotional opportunity for retailers. Environmental purists can poke holes in the logic of preserving the environment through slick marketing that promotes increased consumption of products because they are made from bamboo, use less water or contain less fat. However, the reality is people are going to continue to need and want stuff, so it’s not a bad thing that such retailers as Target have joined the cause in a more ambitious way by promoting a wide range of products that might never get featured in the circular were it not for Earth Day.