Target Dresses Up for Halloween with Facebook App [Screenshots]

So Target, the #2 US retailer, has just launched a Facebook app that allows people to poll their friends and loved ones on which fancy dress costume they should don for Halloween parties.

Choose between super-heroes and sexy-nymphs, or for children and pets (yes, pets) cartoon characters. All costumes available for purchase from Target, of course.

It’s a fun little app, built on the fundamental utility of social commerce – helping people shop smarter with social intelligence (smarter discovery and decisions with the help of others).  It’s also slick, with none of the ghastly lag times we’ve come to hate from some Facebook apps, and plays nice(ish) on an iPad (you have to select a costume, and select again to add it to the poll).

Creatively, the Target “ask your friends” app could perhaps have been made a little more fun to use if costumes were previewed with people’s head-shots (from webcam or profile photo)/backgrounds, and if pairings were allowed (should Banana Man or the Green Lantern go to the ball with Devil Queen? Oh the existential angst of it all)…

Last year, Target’s social commerce initiative involved offering Target fans early access to it’s celebrity designer collection via the flash sale site Gilt.