Target: Stuff Your Easter Basket With Violent Video Games!

Spring is here, and store shelves and websites are filled with Easter gift. Like these promotional items on the front page of Target. Only this looks more like a Christmas flyer. When did the Easter Bunny start bringing video games and Barbie dolls?

That’s why ads exist, of course: to suggest new traditions that benefit the advertiser in some way. In my family, an Easter basket holds a variety of candy (which parents “help” the child to eat up) and some small toys, like a chirping robo-chicken or a stuffed bunny.

Either some families see the holiday as something more like Christmas, or this is something that Target really, really want to happen. Good luck with that, Target. Please don’t let “basket filler” become the new “stocking stuffer.” (I loathe the phrase “stocking stuffer.”)

That’s not why reader Gina sent this screen grab to us, though. She had more of a problem with one of the items in the basket. She noticed that the game “Call of Duty: Ghosts” is in the basket, and questions the appropriateness of a first-person shooter game set during wartime as a gift for someone young enough to receive an Easter basket. (It has an ESRB rating of “M,” appropriate for ages 17 and up.) Maybe it’s a questionable gift for anyone during a holiday honoring an executed religious leader.

We asked Target who the target customer for this ad is, but haven’t received a response yet. We’ll let you know when we do.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist