How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did

Today in my comm101 class, an article “How Target Figured Out a Teen Girl was Pregnant Before her Dad did” appeared in one of the lecture slides. The lecture was regarding management information systems and business technology management. Although only a brief section of the article was posted in the slides, the title of it certainly caught my attention. I found the article online to find out exactly how Target could find this sort of information, as I was rather curious.

Apparently, Target assigns an ID number to customers that are connected to them through their credit card of email address. Targets puts together histories of purchases for the ID numbers. They then compare the purchase history of women that have signed up for Target’s baby registry and watch for common purchases made by the women. Due dates within a range could even be estimated through analyzing certain products in purchase histories.

More important, he could also estimate her due date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy.

I find it unsettling that Target uses this system to deliver coupons to the right person at the right time. I understand that technology systems can be extremely useful to companies but I find that estimating women’s due dates is taking it a bit too far.

 

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