Back in the day, everything about your college dorm was a bit of a gamble. Your school seemed to match you with a roommate seemingly at random, and you had to wander around Bed Bath & Beyond trying to find those sheets specially made for the oddly proportioned mattresses. Now college kids have sites that match them with the perfect roommate, à la a dating site, and Target is trying to tackle the décor issue, too.
The retailer’s new platform lets students take a quiz and uses their Facebook and Instagram profiles to figure out how best to decorate their dorms. The quiz asks about hobbies, color palettes, music preferences, schedules (are you an early riser who eats healthy or a leftover-pizza-at-noon type?), and organizational skills to match you with some products. If you choose to opt in socially, it can use your Facebook likes to find keywords and photos’ color schemes to pick out products from the site. If you invite your future roommate, you’ll see how well your tastes match up.
Target worked with design startup Umbra, crowdsourcing site Betterific, and students at design schools to put together the product line, which is budget-friendly and space-saving. After taking the quiz, the site offered up a $76 green office chair, a $13 lamp, and a $50 rolling cart. The color palettes feature a lot of black and white, mixed with light colors, Target’s vice president of brand and category marketing, Rick Gomez, tells Mashable. He says the latest group of college students are used to doing everything on their mobile devices. The company is also betting they’re comfortable sharing their social media with retailers.
For students who’d rather tackle decorating their dorm the old-fashioned way, Target also offers a checklist, so you don’t show up to college sans coffee maker.
