[beerandt]

This was, I think, in 1996. (Edit: Nope, ~2002.)

And depending on if you believe the daughter or not, Target knew that she was pregnant before she did. It was able to tie the purchase of unscented lotion (and a few other items, but nothing as obvious as a pregnancy test, or anything similar) to her home address from using her parents credit card.

The lesson Target learned was not to show their hand.

But it goes to show how much effort is put into finding new (almost) parents to market to.

Edit 2:

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....