Walmart: Highlighting Value during Recession – Family Night Style!

Over the year, we’ve seen Walmart really turn up the dial in advertising to gain market share during this recession and showcase value to families. Earlier in the year, we saw advertising highlighting how families can make meals at home at a fraction of the price of eating out.

Recently, Walmart continued pushing value by highlighting “family night”.   This allowed Walmart to get synergy from Hasbro, one of its vendors, who has been advertising “Family Game Night”.    Walmart is expanding the concept to make it more of a one-stop shop adding options including  games, video games, movies, and snacks.

A few key highlights in the program that I noticed:

1. Television

Walmart has continued to invest in television as it continues to be a great vehicle for awareness.  Walmart has substantially increased television advertising during this recession.

2. Microsite:   http://www.walmart.com/familymoments

This website really allows the consumer to learn more about making the best game night possible. It pulls together several great pieces together for the consumer including:

-  Television commercial from Walmart allows for inspiration.

- Mom blog – Walmart highlights a blog written by a mother that discusses familygame night and offers families a chance to win a $40 Gift Card.  This mother is one of Walmart’s  11 moms (a select group of mommy bloggers).  This is a great way to utilize social media.

 

- Tell us your tips:  Walmart makes it easy for Mom’s to share their own tips and other mom’s visiting the site can see and review these tips.   Again, this provides an example of social interaction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Product Reviews:   Walmart makes it simple for consumers to see a selection of games and points out the customer ratings of the games that are sold online.  Mom can read reviews and buy from walmart.com feeling more confident about her purchase. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. In-store:

Walmart continued to bring this concept to life in-store by creating a disply that pairs these products together (games, movies, and snacks) as they are not usually merchandised in the same location.   Moms should be able to easily pick up something for the family to do and save themselves some money on a Friday or Saturday night versus going out to the movies or going to the mall.  This is a great example of shopper marketing and merchandising!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let me know what you think.