• MSNBC, Friday, June 22, 2007 11:30 AM

With its iconic red-and-white logo and snappy marketing, Target has managed to cultivate a reputation as a big-box discounter offering both affordability and style, while avoiding many of the controversies befalling its larger competitor, Wal-Mart.

Patricia Edwards, a portfolio manager with investment managers Wentworth, Hauser and Violich, thinks Target hasn't suffered attacks on its reputation, like Wal-Mart, because it's successful at marketing itself. "It makes you hip, it makes you cool," she says.

But Target has faced pockets of dissent. Community members in some towns have objected to its expansion plans, and an environmental group recently took the company to task for stocking products that include potentially toxic polyvinyl chloride, or PVCs.

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