• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, November 13, 2012

Not content with letting Bullseye the Dog tower over a village of tiny people, Godzilla style, Target is rolling out its second holiday campaign: An invisible singing duo who steer shoppers to the biggest bargains.

The additional seasonal campaign features a “superpumped” Target Deals Duet, and in its holiday blog, refers to them as “livelier Jiminy Crickets -- a shopping conscience steering you in the right direction.”

While the actors in the spots can’t see them, “the quirky singing-and-saving duo shines a light on savings and appears at moments when guests are making their most important gift-giving decisions,” a Target spokesperson tells Marketing Daily, via email.

There’s even a spot dedicated to the industry’s buzzword of the season: “Self-gifting.” (Instead of fa-la-la-la, they sing, “Buy one for me, and one for you-you-you.”) 

The spokesperson says the two efforts, both created by 72andSunny, combine to form “a comprehensive holiday marketing campaign that captures imagination and truly delivers the emotion -- the joy -- that will get guests excited.”

He adds that the chain has officially retired the Christmas Champ campaign, a series of long-running spots featuring a maniacal blonde in a red sweatsuit, training for her shopping marathon.

It looks like Target’s timing is spot-on. A new survey from the National Retail Federation finds that Americans are indeed more enthusiastic about shopping this year, with 52.8% already out there buying, compared with 51.4% at this time last year. 

And there are signs that shoppers intend to splurge more; some 23% plan to buy someone jewelry, for example, the highest since 2007.

Last month, the NRF reported that it expects 60% of Americans to buy themselves a present this season -- the highest self-gifting has ever scored in its 10-year survey. On average, the survey, conducted for the NRF by BIGInsight, reports that self-gifters will spend an average of $140 on their own presents.