Dive Brief:

• Target has launched Treatser for Halloween, a mobile website/social network designed to help parents map out the best trick-or-treating houses in their town, measured by their “spookiest decorations, funkiest costumes and, of course, best candy!” according to Target.

• The mobile website will crowdsource information from parents, who can use it to up-vote prime spots by tagging their locations as a “treat” on their map. 
• The more “treats” a location accumulates, the larger its pumpkin icon will appear.

Dive Insight:

Treatster is yet another expression of retailers’ incorporating user-generated content into their marketing and e-commerce efforts. The idea is to build engagement with — and between —shoppers.

That's because consumers are increasingly communicating with their peers through social media sites like Pinterest, for example, by “pinning” everything from favorite products and stores to music and magazines, and sharing them with a virtual community.

Hence, retailers want to be part of the digital conversation so that their brand stays relevant and top-of-mind for shoppers — even if that conversation has nothing to do with generating a concrete sale.

Target, for example, provides real-time commentary on what celebrities are wearing on the red carpet at award shows and movie premieres as a way for the cheap-chic discounter to fortify its standing as an arbiter of fashion.