A year after introducing it in a single test market, Target’s new loyalty program has a new name, new participating markets, and a few new perks that may or may not make signing up worth the effort.

“Target Red”, first introduced to the Dallas-Fort Worth area last April, is now called “Target Circle” and will be available in Charlotte, Denver, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Phoenix effective February 19th.

Target describes it as “a super-cool (and fast-growing) loyalty test packed with fun surprises, community giving and personalized perks”. Retail analysts describe it as a way to engage shoppers who may not be interested in applying for a Target REDcard. And committed Target deal-seekers who are a whiz at combining coupons, Cartwheel offers, weekly promotions and their REDcard discount to pay low prices for their Target purchases may describe the new loyalty program as, well, kind of meh.

But then committed Target deal-seekers apparently aren’t the intended audience for Target Circle.  Here’s the entire Coupons in the News article.