Monthly Archives: July 2012

College Essentials – from Flip Flops to Toothpaste – Are Up For Grabs through the Target Stuff Scholarship Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

Contacts: Kate Lohmuller, Target Communications, (612) 761-6863

Target Media Hotline, (612) 696-3400

MINNEAPOLIS (July 16, 2012) – This back-to-college season, Target® Corp. (NYSE: TGT) is offering college students a chance to win one of 16 unconventional scholarships through the Target Stuff Scholarship program. Candidates can enter to win by participating in interactive video interviews at TargetStuffScholarship.com, where an array of unusual prize packages – from a mini fridge and water pitchers to enough flip flops for an entire dorm – are up for grabs.

“Half the fun of going to college is shopping for all of the stuff you need,” says Stacia Andersen, senior vice president, merchandising, Target.  “For students who still need some of the essentials, the Target Stuff Scholarship program is an easy and fun way to compete for the gear that will make for a great school year.”

Beginning July 15, 2012, there will be three separate rounds of competition to win one of the 16 Target Stuff Scholarships. To apply, students will select the scholarship of their choice and then participate in a video interview with a panel of comedic professors who ask a series of fun and quirky questions. Students must then share the interview through their social media channels to garner votes from friends and family. At the end of each round, the five videos with the most votes will be reviewed by a panel of judges to determine the final winner.

A sampling of the 16 Target Stuff Scholarships include:

  • The Target Clean Teeth Scholarship: An electric toothbrush and a year’s supply of toothpaste
  • The Target Hangout Scholarship: Six bungee chairs, four beanbag chairs and two body pillows
  • The Target Dorm Gourmand Scholarship: A blender, a microwave, a grill, a hotplate, a toaster oven and a year’s supply of cereal
  • The Target Ink Scholarship: A printer, paper and enough ink to print four years’ worth of papers

For the full list of Scholarships that are available, visit TargetStuffScholarships.com.

These scholarships are just one of the many ways Target is helping students head back to college this year. With these customizable resources, Target takes one more thing off students’ to-do lists:

  • Target.com/college: As the ultimate back-to-college hub, Target.com/college offers savings, helpful resources and stylish dorm décor to fit every college style and need.
  • uStyler: New this year at Target.com/college is an online program that allows students to mix and match dorm room products as they begin shopping for their personalized look. Students can design their own virtual dorm room by test driving how different bedding and decorative accents look together. Students can then share their design with their roommates and other friends through Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Pinterest.
  • The Checklist: Available at Target.com/college, this customizable tool helps students organize and personalize their back-to-college shopping list. This year, The Checklist offers product recommendations – via filters and dropdowns – based on living situation for easy shopping. The Checklist can be printed at home or at a Target registry kiosk. The list can be shared via Facebook or sent to friends via a mobile device.
  • Fresh Product: Target is introducing all new back-to-college dinnerware and drinkware for 2012 that boast bright colors and bold patterns. The collection is microwave safe and stackable for easy storage. Also new this year are organic sheets, reversible comforters and jersey duvets.
  • Target After-Hours Busing Events: For the eleventh consecutive year, Target will host private after-hours shopping events for incoming freshman at 69 colleges and universities across the country. Throughout August and September, freshman students will be transported from their campus to Target for an evening of entertainment and exclusive offers, and be able to shop after-hours for any last minute items on their list. Students can check their school’s Facebook page to see if an event is scheduled for their college.

About Target

Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at 1,763 stores across the United States and at Target.com. The company plans to open its first stores in Canada in 2013. In addition, the company operates a credit card segment that offers branded proprietary credit card products. Since 1946, Target has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs; today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week. For more information about Target’s commitment to corporate responsibility, visit Target.com/hereforgood.

For more information, visit Target.com/Pressroom

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“Queen of Princesses” Meg Cabot makes triumphant return to Size 12!

NEW YORK, July 12, 2012 - First there was SIZE 12 IS NOT FAT. Then, there was SIZE 14 IS NOT FAT EITHER. You demanded BIG BONED. And now, Meg Cabot makes a triumphant return to her reader-favorite “Heather Wells” mystery series with SIZE 12 AND READY TO ROCK.

New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot, who most know by her beloved “Princess Diaries” novels, was recently featured on VH-1 Celebrity, talking about Heather Wells, the fan-favorite heroine of Cabot’s “Size 12″ books. The author, known for her effervescent style, believes in empowering readers, through her own experiences, and her characters’ as well. VH-1 quoted Cabot, saying, “‘I wanted to write about a heroine who…has the same problems that I did ’cause I just found that I couldn’t find books like that but [whose heroines] also still have romances and sex and don’t need to lose weight to find guys, because I never had that problem, you know. I always got guys.’”

In SIZE 12 AND READY TO ROCK, readers are reunited with Heather Wells, who used to be a teen pop sensation…until her label dropped her for gaining a few extra pounds, and she walked in on her boy-band boyfriend Jordan Cartwright banging her pint-sized popstar replacement, Tania Trace. In the aftermath of this debacle, the last thing Heather expected were the plus-sized sparks that flared with Jordan’s big brother, Cooper.

But now that Heather and Cooper are ready to tie the knot, she’s determined to keep her new job at New York College’s aptly-nicknamed “Death Dorm” from throwing a wrench (and the many other deadly little surprises it’s thrown in the past) into her happily-ever-after plans. (Maybe not the “ever after” – Heather and Cooper have learned to take the words “until death do us part” very seriously!)

Now, in SIZE 12 AND READY TO ROCK, it’s summer break and the campus is quiet. But that doesn’t mean Heather can relax because that ambulance she just saw pulling up in front of Death Dorm is there for none other than Tania Trace, now married to – and pregnant by – Heather’s ex who just happens to be covered in his wife’s bodyguard’s blood.

Just another day at Death Dorm – or has America’s hottest couple got a deadly secret? Soon Heather’s dodging photo-hungry paparazzi and squealing fourteen and fifteen year-old pop star protégés after the first-ever Tania Trace Rock Camp – with its own reality film crew – checks into the dorm. But when one of the producers of Tania’s reality show checks out – on a gurney – it’s clear murder wasn’t taking the summer off.

Can Heather get estranged brothers Cooper and Jordan to bury the hatchet – before someone buries it into Cartwright Record’s biggest star? If the “reality” is that saving Tania’s life is what it takes to get her ex out of her life – and Cooper firmly into it, once and for all – Heather Wells is ready to rock, roll, and right some grievous wrongs!

Check out SIZE 12 AND READY TO ROCK, the latest in a series that “will leave readers begging for time-outs to control sudden laughing fits” (Publishers Weekly)!

About Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot was born during the Chinese astrological year of the Fire Horse, a notoriously unlucky sign, but learned at an early age that a good storyteller can always give herself a happy ending. Her books for both adults, teens, and tweens have included multiple #1 New York Times bestsellers, selling over sixteen million copies worldwide.

Born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, Meg also lived in Grenoble, France and Carmel, California (the setting for her bestselling Mediator series) before moving to New York City after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Indiana University.

After working for ten years as an assistant residence hall director at New York University (an experience from which she occasionally draws inspiration for her Heather Wells mystery series (Size 12 Is Not Fat; Size 14 Is Not Fat Either; Big Boned—two new books in the series will be out in 2012 and 2013, including Size 12 and Ready to Rock), Meg wrote the Princess Diaries series, which has been translated into 38 languages and on which two hit feature films by Disney were based.

Meg also wrote the 1-800-Where-R-You? series (which has been reprinted under the title Vanished and was made into the Lifetime series called Missing), as well as numerous other award-winning, best-selling stand-alone books and series, including All-American Girl and Avalon High (on which an original Disney Channel movie was based), and several books told entirely in emails and text messages (Boy Next Door/Boy Meets Girl/Every Boy’s Got One).

Meg’s newest series include the hit middle grade series Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls, Insatiable, a paranormal romance for adult readers, which was followed by a sequel, Overbite, in July 2011, and Abandon, a new paranormal series for YA readers (the sequel, Underworld, is in US stores in May 2012).

Meg Cabot (her last name rhymes with habit, as in “her books can be habit forming”) currently lives in Key West with her husband and two cats. He does not know he married a fire horse. Please don’t tell him!

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