Mom to the Rescue

A superhero Pinterest campaign launches the Justice League collection at Target

t’s common for toys and other licensed goods to accompany major motion picture releases, but what happens when movie-inspired products don’t launch at the same time as the movie? That was the challenge that Target faced with its Justice League collection debut. The retailer was introducing over 50 exclusive Justice League–themed products, including toys, books, apparel and more, but didn’t have the buzz and advertising support that would typically come with a movie release.

“We needed to get creative,” said Deborah Swan, VP, Client Partner at POP. “We knew that Target wanted to reach out to moms in particular as they were likely to be making the purchase decisions for these products. The challenge, then, was to find a way to get both moms and their kids excited.”

Swan adds, “We know moms tend to gravitate to Pinterest, so we decided, why not reach out to them where they already were. The issue then became that we couldn’t just pin a bunch of Justice League products and call it good. We needed to provide something more valuable and fun. That’s what gets people to re-pin and participate on Pinterest.”

Knowing that do-it-yourself projects and recipes are popular on Pinterest, the POP team set out to create a variety of Justice League–themed projects that centered around various events and needs moms often encounter, such as birthday parties, beach days, pets, and decorating.

“We worked closely with buyers at Target to identify the best products to use in our pins and then created several concepts around those products that were fun and compelling, like Superhero S’mores, a DIY Superhero Terarium, and a 3D Living Superhero Comic Book. They had to be imaginative and inspirational but also accessible, to get moms and kids excited enough to actually try them out,” said Swan.

To support the Pinterest pins, POP also created landing pages for Target.com that provided detailed instructions regarding what customers would need to create the projects at home.

“The response was phenomenal,” said Ms. Swan. “We could see it in the numbers, of course, but it was also fun to read the comments. People were having a great time with these projects.”