Target will launch its new electronics accessories brand Heyday on Saturday, June 9, 2018. Heyday is Target’s first exclusive electronics brand, with products chosen for and designed with input from younger Millennials and Gen Z customers.
Heyday products include headphones, earbuds, Bluetooth speakers, Lightning cords, Apple Watch watchbands, and phone cases, and more. The products focus on quality at affordable prices. Heyday products retail from $5 for earbuds to $60 for Bluetooth speakers and headphones. Most items cost less than $20.
Target chose the accessory product categories and styling choices for people who grew up with technology and consider their devices as extensions of themselves, the company says.
Target’s product design and development team surveyed customers in the designated age groups for feedback and suggestions on what matters to them and what they look for in various product categories. Colors, patterns, and styles draw from current innovation, fashion accessory, beauty, and pop trends.
Surveyed customers contributed useful suggestions based on real-world issues, needs, and preferences.
For example, some customers mentioned earbuds that don’t stay in place because of weight imbalance. Often the earbud with the combination microphone and volume controller weighs a bit more than the other, mic-less bud. When customers were exercising or just moving around quickly they sometimes found that the lighter earbud popped out. Based on that suggestion, Heyday’s designers added a small weight in the earbud without the microphone/controller to even things out.
Another suggestion dealt with water-damaged Bluetooth speakers. Because the portable speakers are small and don’t weigh much, customers often move the speakers close while working, studying, exercising, or relaxing. When customers were in or near water, for example in pools, ponds, lakes, and the beach, too often the speakers got wet and died. The solution? Waterproofing speakers so they could withstand being submerged up to one meter.
Small speakers could also benefit from better voice tuning, customers said. Simply turning up the volume to hear the lyrics often resulted in lots of noise but not much clarity. The result of that feedback was that Heyday’s product design team specified speakers tuned for vocal clarity.
Longer charging cords, or at least a selection of lengths, was another area customers focused on. Too often customers needed to use phones while they were charging and short cords meant they had to unplug the phones to talk and then plug them back in when finished with the conversation, and Target has now addressed this with additional cord options as well.
