Thursdays and Fridays during the summer,
Target sponsors free evenings
at
The Art Institute Of Chicago.
You wouldn’t know the sponsor
unless you really looked for it.
There are no signs at the gallery.
On the Art Institute site,
the only Target logo appears
at the bottom of the info page
and it is tiny.
Yes, the event is called
Target Free Summer Evenings
but Target could mean anything.
In a time of blatant promotion,
this sponsorship act feels genuine.
When people do make the connection,
they wonder
(as I did)
what else
the company sponsors
that is never advertised.
Is it as effective short term
as splashing the Target logo everywhere?
I doubt it.
But it DOES send a strong branding signal.