(Image courtesy thefrisky.com)
Put this on the top of the list of silly decisions made by Target.
Remember the Gossip Girl-inspired line Anna Sui was designing for Target? Well, the line is still going ahead as expected, but a top Target exec reportedly got nervous about the "racy" content of the show and is trying to have the whole Gossip Girl marketing angle scrapped.
According to the New York Daily News:
“One of Target’s top executives got nervous about being that closely associated with the show, given the [debauchery] its characters get into,” says an on-the-set source. For example, Blake Lively’s character, Serena, killed a man, and most of the characters frequently get wasted, do drugs and have promiscuous sex.
A “Gossip Girl” insider tells us that a party scene featuring Blair and Chuck (played by Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick) was set to shoot at Sui’s flagship store in SoHo last Tuesday; models being used as extras were to wear Sui’s Target collection. “There was going to be signage, as well as Target symbols in purple and black — Anna’s signature colors,” says the snitch. “And it was rumored that Anna herself was going to be making a cameo appearance.”
“It’s Target’s loss, because the line would have sold better if it had played a part in the show.”
I have to say, although I am sure this "top exec" probably does not fall under Gossip Girl's targeted demographic, I find it incredibly hard to believe that nobody clued her or him into the shows premise...why didn't the marketing team go ahead and research and explain exactly what Gossip Girl was all about...the show's content and packaging has been pretty consistent since the pilot episode.
If the whole line had been canned, I would've just chalked these reports up to the fact that somebody at Target finally saw that these were just really ugly clothes that did not need to be sold to consumers who didn't know any better (tee hee hee)...but since it's not, could there be some other reason behind it?
