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target ad features sad kid in iron man costume
A new Target commercial wants you to trash that homemade Halloween costume and pick up a mass-produced outfit at Target instead. The ad shows a kid in an elaborate mom-made Iron Man costume, complete with flashlight repulsor jets on the hands and a touch-lamp power source on the chest. The kid looks embarrassed and bummed out, and then we cut to the Target version of the costume.

The ad riled up the internet's legion of creative do-it-yourselfers, as well as regular YouTube viewers who were still nostalgic for the homemade costumes of their childhoods.

Here's what people on YouTube are saying:
Mocking kids/parents who have the creativity and drive to make their own costumes. Way to go, Target. You should be real proud of this one.
Wow, this is a great message for people during a recession! Go buy the crappy printed on plastic crap for twenty bucks instead, really Target?! Or I could sew something awesome (a Jedi and a fairy princess this year) that will be totally unique and durable, instead of cheap, disposable, and just like every other kid.
Why spend time with your kid making something together for Halloween, when you can just go to Target and spend $19 for a memory that will last, oh say, two days?
Way to go, Target! Spending time with those little rugrats is overrated, anyway.
And meanwhile on Reddit, there's a popular thread called "Target Makes Moms and Kids Feel Like Sh*t for Having Homemade Costumes," where this comment basically sums up the tone:
The idea of it being a bad thing to make your own costume is ridiculous. Making costumes is a great way for parents to bond with their children and create happy memories.
A Jezebel commenter writes:
Unless Target is treating me to free drinks and an evening of Chuck Norris jokes, I think I'll stick to homemade, thanks.
And there's a Slate article calling the Target ad amoral, snide and misguided.

None of this is exactly great publicity for Target.
So, why did this particular ad hit a nerve with the online audience, and what was Target really going for?

I think that the internet DIY set reacted to making fun of a costume that fits their ethos perfectly. Last halloween, for example, one DIY dad became a YouTube hit when he posted an awesome homemade Iron Man costume he made for his kid. Is Target's message really that the kid would have been better off wearing a storebought version? If so, citizens of the internet (and makers in particular) are right to be a little ticked off.

As for the non-DIYers, I think that what made them upset was the way Target tried to manipulate kids by playing the dual role of the bully who makes fun of your costume and the cool parent who just wants to help you fit in, unlike your weird, lame, Iron-Man-suit-building mom.

That doesn't work, though, because the parents who will be paying for the costumes are the ones who teach their kids that bullying and peer pressure are wrong, and that creativity is good. The bigger, more popular kid who mocks your costume is the bad guy in every cartoon and after-school special. Why would any kid root for him? And why would parents root against their own nostalgia for (sometimes embarrassing) homemade Halloween outfits? (And if this ad was made to be seen by kids, it sure was shot poorly.)

That leads me to a distasteful theory about who Target was, well, targeting with this commercial. It's not aimed at internet geeks with the time, money and technical skills to make amazing Iron Man costumes for their kids. They aren't going to go to Target for a costume anyway. It's aimed at parents who don't have that time, money or expertise, and who don't want their kids to be singled out as weird or poor. Did Target pick a black family for the ad because they think African-American parents fit that profile? That would be the grossest type of marketing, but I think it's possible.

It doesn't matter if you can't make (or afford to make) your kid a costume, though: the ad still fails because the homemade costume it shows is cool. That mom did a great job with it, and clearly put in some time and effort, so there's nothing for her kid to be embarrassed about. If Target wanted to invoke shame and peer-pressure to make parents feel self-conscious about their income or costume-making skills, they should have at least shown a costume that was actually bad.