DIGITS WEBINAR RECAP: TARGET’S CIRCLE WEEK AND THE STATE OF RETAIL
Target’s Circle Week and the State of Retail
Target just executed one of its most strategic Circle Week events and then a few weeks later restructuring 800+ roles, primarily at the director level. For CPG brands, this signals a fundamental shift: merchants are seemingly back in the driver’s seat, promotions are getting smarter (not bigger), and the path to Q4 success requires surgical precision over broad spending. The takeaway? Target is betting on merchant empowerment and experiential retail, and brands that adapt quickly will capture disproportionate share through the holidays and into 2026. With promotional spend flatlining and buyer authority expanding, the brands that win will be those who partner strategically, execute flawlessly, and think beyond discounts to create experiences.
Key Takeaways at a Glance
Target eliminated 800+ roles, with directors hit hardest, signaling a move toward flatter organizational structure and empowered merchants
Merchants now have more influence and decision-making power, creating partnership opportunities for proactive brands
Target’s Circle Week execution reached new heights with better deal merchandising, expanded seasonal activations, and seamless omnichannel alignment
Q4 promotional strategy is shifting from broad, expensive offers to targeted, efficient activations
Universal digital coupon standards are coming to major retailers in 2026, potentially revolutionizing promotional capabilities
What Just Happened at Target? Understanding the Organizational Shifts
Target eliminated over 800 positions in the Minneapolis area, with 87 director-level roles impacted (the largest single position title affected). This restructuring primarily removed middle management layers, with merchandising teams particularly impacted across divisionals, directors, planning roles, and some buyer positions.
The restructuring isn’t random cost-cutting. Target is deliberately removing organizational layers to restore merchant authority. Directors who previously led specific business units are now merging teams, with individual merchants gaining larger P&L responsibilities and more decision-making power. Support areas (pricing, promotion, negotiation) remain intact but seemingly with reduced headcount and influence in final decisions.
For vendor partners, this creates both challenge and opportunity. Your primary contacts may have changed, but the merchants you work with now have more latitude to say “yes” to ideas that drive category growth. As Chris Thron from DIGITS noted in the webinar, “Ideas and asks that maybe a month ago, even a week ago might have been a no. If buyers are really going to be empowered to run their business the way that they know works best, as a vendor, you should be really looking to bring those ideas to your buyer.”
What does this mean for your Q4 strategy? Start by confirming who your current contacts are and understanding their new scope of responsibility.
How Did Target’s Circle Week Perform? Insights from In-Store Execution
Target’s October Circle Week represented the most comprehensive and strategically executed promotional event in the program’s 10-year history, extending beyond traditional deals into product drops, cultural partnerships, and experiential retail.
Retail consultant Chris Niesen conducted store visits across six Target locations over five days during Circle Week, revealing four key themes: early momentum activation, in-aisle deal merchandising, amplified essentials, and an expanded Circle experience.
The execution details matter. Daily deals featured bold signage on front endcaps with consistent promotional markers throughout the store. Buy-one-get-one offers dominated, particularly in food (50% off) and commodities (25% off). Critically, Target extended Circle Week visibility beyond traditional food and essentials departments into the back of the store through partnerships like Stranger Things, Roblox, and Lego (complete with dedicated “Circle Week New Exclusive Product Drop” signage).
Chris Thron emphasized the evolution: “We had seen the events get a little bit tired, repetitive, feeling less special. The big thing that jumped out at me is better deal merchandising. Target really leading a little bit more in that space and making sure they’re bringing their best stuff for these three-time-a-year events.”
Perhaps most impressive? The omnichannel alignment. Every deal visible in-store matched what appeared in the app (a level of consistency that many competitors failed to achieve during their concurrent promotional events).
How does your brand’s Circle strategy compare to what Target showcased during their flagship promotional event?
What’s Target’s Q4 Promotional Strategy?
Target is flatlining promotional spend from an investment perspective while maintaining promotional volume through more strategic, efficient offers focused on experiences and unique brands rather than broad traffic-buying discounts.
Don’t misinterpret “flatlining” as fewer promotions. Target will continue offering promotional value to guests, but the approach is fundamentally different. They’re moving away from expensive, broad promotions that drive business inefficiently (high subsidy, lower incrementality) toward targeted activations that protect margins while delivering guest value.
This shift serves multiple purposes. Financially, Target needs to manage earnings per share to close the year strong. Operationally, with leaner merchant teams, executing fewer but better promotions makes sense. Strategically, Target is betting on the “Tarshay” factor (bringing back what makes Target special through unique brands, seasonal moments, and curated experiences rather than competing purely on price).
For vendors, this creates a white space opportunity. Translation? Brands that bring smart, efficient promotional ideas to newly empowered merchants can capture more share with less competition from Target’s own promotional calendar.
Is your Q4 plan built on broad promotions or surgical strikes? There’s still time to adjust.
What Can Brands Still Do for Q4?
Despite being eight weeks from Christmas, brands have multiple levers available: revamped promotion processes with more flexibility, accommodating Roundel timelines, third-party media activation, and surgical targeting approaches including geo-segmented Circle offers and high-volume store focus.
Target completely revamped their promo process this year with longer lead times, but they’ve also built in flexibility for off-process activations when merchants champion them. Getting promotions live in November might be challenging, but December remains on the table for brands working closely with their buyer teams.
The bigger challenge isn’t timing. It’s budget. Many vendors are operating on shoestring budgets to close the year due to Target’s overall business softness. This requires smarter activation strategies:
Geo-segmentation: Target Circle allows geographic targeting to top-volume stores. Why subsidize low-volume locations when you can concentrate investment where fish are actually biting?
Item-specific promotions: Focused offers require less markdown spend than broad category discounts while often delivering better incremental units.
Third-party media: DIGITS and other providers can activate quickly (often within days) with generally more efficient cost-per-sale metrics than first-party programs.
High-volume store strategy: Approximately 300 Target stores significantly outperform the chain average. Concentrating media dollars around these locations (pushing shoppers who want to visit “maybe not today” to convert “today”) consistently delivers outsized results.
Which of these surgical approaches best fits your remaining budget and business objectives?
What’s Coming in 2026? The Universal Coupon Revolution
Universal digital coupon standards are expected to launch at major retailers in the first half of 2026, dramatically expanding promotional capabilities while solving fraud and execution challenges that have plagued the coupon industry for years.
This isn’t minor technical housekeeping. It’s potentially transformative. Chris Thron presented at the Association for Coupon Promotions conference and came away highly bullish on the technology’s potential.
Current digital coupon execution at Target and nationally involves difficult processes, guard rails, and capability limitations (much of it tied to fraud and coupon abuse issues). The new universal standard solves these problems while unlocking capabilities brands have wished for but couldn’t access.
Early pilot data from CVS is “blowing away” expectations on pure redemption volume and engagement (with almost no promotion or marketing behind it). This signals massive consumer demand for frictionless digital savings.
For Target vendors specifically, being first movers in this space once Target adopts the standard could provide significant competitive advantage. The technology enables scale (reaching more consumers) while allowing surgical efficiency (targeting exactly who you want, when you want, with minimal waste).
As Chris Thron emphasized: “A lot of the things that brands wish they could do at Target or wish they could do with their national coupons, they will have those capabilities at their fingertips now.”
Who on your team owns coupon strategy, and are they connected to this emerging opportunity?
Action Steps
Ready to adapt your Target strategy? Here’s what to do next:
- Confirm your contacts: With 800+ roles eliminated, verify who your current merchant partners are and understand their expanded scope of responsibility.
- Audit your Q4 plan: Shift from broad promotions to surgical strikes (geo-segmented offers, high-volume store focus, item-specific deals).
- Request your Target Circle Market Share Report: Understand where you stand competitively and identify white space opportunities. Request your free report here.
- Evaluate March Circle Week: Target’s next Circle Week is tentatively scheduled for Week 3 of March 2026 (moving earlier due to Easter timing). Start planning now for product drops, exclusive partnerships, or experiential activations beyond traditional discounts.
- Connect on universal coupons: Download the Coupon 24 app to see the technology in action, and connect your coupon strategy lead with DIGITS to prepare for 2026 rollout.
FAQs
When is Target’s next Circle Week?
Tentatively scheduled for Week 3 of March 2026, earlier than the April timing in 2025 due to Easter calendar shifts. Target typically waits until the last minute to lock dates, prioritizing getting out ahead of Walmart and Amazon events.
How many Circle Week events does Target run annually?
Three. Typically one in spring, one in July, and one in October serving as the early holiday shopping kickoff.
Are Target’s own brands participating in Circle?
Yes, but differently than in early Cartwheel days. Target own brands now participate more at the category level rather than flooding Circle with individual offers. Some own-brand vendors with dedicated budgets are activating through retail media instead of promotional pricing.
What happened to Target’s price matching policy?
Target no longer matches competitor retailers (changed 2 to 3 months ago as a financially-driven decision). However, they do price match themselves between online and in-store pricing using dynamic pricing strategies, honoring whichever price is lower.
Can smaller or niche brands succeed with Target promotions?
Absolutely, particularly through paid search. Amazon-native brands entering Target often have P&Ls built for significant digital media investment and deploy that aggressively in Target Product Ads, where six of the top nine search result positions are now paid placements.
Conclusion
Target’s simultaneous organizational restructuring and promotional evolution isn’t a coincidence. It’s a strategy. By flattening hierarchy, empowering merchants, and elevating promotional quality over quantity, Target is betting on operational efficiency and experiential differentiation to drive their business forward.
For CPG brands, the opportunity is clear: partner strategically with newly empowered buyers, execute surgical rather than broad activations, and prepare for transformative changes coming in 2026 with universal digital coupons.
The question isn’t whether Target’s strategy will impact your business. It already has. The question is: what will you do differently in the next eight weeks to finish 2025 strong and set up 2026 for success?
Ready to optimize your Target strategy? Contact DIGITS today to discuss how we can help you navigate these changes and capture market share through Q4 and beyond.
About DIGITS Agency
DIGITS is a Target Vendor Services Agency specializing in Target Circle strategy, paid search, Roundel media, and 3P digital campaigns. With exclusive access to Target sales data and a decade of Circle expertise, DIGITS helps CPG brands drive measurable sales growth and maximize ROI at Target.
Dave Glaza, Founder & CEO of DIGITS, remains committed to bringing digital capabilities to physical stores!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/
