Target

Target announced today it's donated $37,500 in monetary support and product to assist with tornado relief efforts underway in the Central United States. The donation includes $25,000 cash for the American Red Cross to aid their efforts and an additional $12,500 that can be used either as cash or product donations to local organizations in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri.

Target, Wal-Mart and a slew of other retailers have reportedly joined the emerging battle over turning smartphones into virtual wallets. The two giant discount retailers along with about two dozen unnamed retailers are teaming up to develop a mobile-payments system in an effort to capture at least a piece of a market expected to surpass $600 billion by 2016.

Kohl's has joined a handful of other up-and-coming masters of retailing in spreading brick-and-mortar stores nationwide during the suburban building boom. Now, however, Kohl's real estate ambitions are waning as the retailer deals with the effects of online retailing and slower growth overall in its physical stores.

Target is pulling a greeting card that mocked Whitney Houston's questionable taste in men. The discount retailer announced that the card, which reads "Next time you think of dating the bad boy, consider Whitney Houston," was sold in its stores prior to Houston's death on Feb. 11th, but they began the process of removing it from their nationwide stock shortly after it was flagged as inappropriate and insensitive.

More marketers are beginning to focus on new strategies to drive increased revenue in a changed email environment. The keys to success will be to send less email; leverage new data sources from channels like social media; better design for mobile devices; and extend personalized messaging in email beyond the inbox.

Target recently ran a mobile advertising campaign that was executed poorly and not optimized for mobile devices. Since then the retail giant has redeemed itself by mobilizing the campaign and showing that it's never too late to get back on track.

Target announced that by late 2012 it would stop carrying any products that have been sandblasted during the manufacturing process. Target, which operates 1,762 stores, has teamed with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to investigate responsible sourcing solutions.

In their ongoing tug-of-war for consumers' grocery carts, Wal-Mart has again beaten Target on prices, according to the latest analysis from Kantar Retail. It won by the widest margin in seven iterations of the survey.

Visitors to Target's Facebook page will notice a "Seussified" version of the brand's iconic bull's-eye logo tied to a cross-promotional marketing campaign for Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. There's also a tab that promotes group gift-giving. 

Target opened a one-day-only pop-up store in Toronto yesterday for its limited edition collection by designer Jason Wu. The store featured an assortment of Jason Wu products, including a Target-branded tote bag created exclusively for the pop-up shop.