Kiley Wear
Honors 1105, Wal-Mart
April 23, 2006
Wal-Mart Currently Improving Advertising
Have you ever wondered how a massive company like Wal-Mart advertises? Does such a large company need advertising? In general I would say no. They do however, need to advertise and let the consumers know what their sales, or clearance items are for the week. Wal-Mart has an insert in the newspaper showing what is on special. They also have television ads showing the look and feel of the store itself. In the past we have seen the bouncy smiley face rolling back prices. Now Wal-Mart has been taking steps to improve their advertising the past year. They have increased the marketing staff, have a relatively new chief marketer, and is taking a different approach to how they grab the consumers attention with television ads and newspaper inserts.
One of the first articles I came across was from Yahoo News. The article is titled “Holiday Advertising Boosts Wal-Mart.” It was written shortly after The Wal-Mart fiscal year ended. The article reported a “12.5% rise in quarterly profit.” The Wal-Mart holiday advertising focused on selling laptop computers and gift cards. They tried an aggressive campaign approach, which by looking at the numbers, worked. Wal-Mart launched their campaign on November first. The Wal-Mart company normally doesn’t start holiday advertising until the middle of November. Part of the aggressiveness came from starting the campaign almost two weeks early. An example of a special offer they had was laptop computers that cost less than four hundred dollars.
The strong holiday promotions drove up the November sales. December sales were not as strong as they would have liked; December’s sales were attributed to gift cards. Gift cards only count toward the stores revenue when they are used. For this fact, the January sales were better than expected.
For their holiday campaign, Wal-Mart television commercials had celebrities in them such as Destiny’s Child, Jesse McCartney, Garth Brooks, and Martina McBride. One of the many ads made had Beyonce Knolls from Destiny’s Child, and her family sitting at home, celebrating the holidays and all their gifts came from Wal-Mart. Beyonce and her family were singing Christmas carols and having quality family time together. This commercial was trying to show that you too can have a wonderful holiday with your family, if you buy your gifts at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart also put a spread in Vogue magazine to show their new styles. The ad with Jesse McCartney was promoting the more expensive gifts such as: Mp3 players, digital cameras and DVD players. He is a popular male pop singer. In the commercial he was using a portable music device. If he wants it, then everybody must want one is what I got out of the ad. I wasn’t affected by this ad very much, because I am not a huge fan of Jesse McCartney (Howard, 2006, para. 9).
This new holiday ad started in the fourth quarter (Howard, 2006, para. 4). Along with strong aggressive holiday ads, Wal-Mart is realizing there is more to promoting than “everyday low prices.” When you see the smiley face what do you think of? Wal-Mart? That happy yellow smiley face is always bouncing around the stores rolling back prices. Target’s ads, however, promote a “cheap-chic” style that is cute, stylish and affordable (Howard, 2006, para. 1). Wal-Mart is seeing this and wants to expand its customer base through its advertising. Wal-Mart has been doing this by putting more ads on the air, and adding merchandise to its stores that is more stylish. The chief marketer for Wal-Mart worked for Target for twenty years before working for Wal-Mart. John Fleming has tried his best to make the Wal-Mart ads more effective. He has expanded the marketing staff and the marketing budget. “Ad spending for 2005 was up 44% over 2004 to 1.4 billion dollars.” Fleming is still working on increasing the marketing staff to over 250 people. Just a few years ago there was only a handful of marketing staff (Howard, 2006, para. 8).
Wal-Mart does their marketing and advertising out of their home-store in Bentonville Arkansas. This is where all the newspaper inserts, television commercials, and any other advertising come from. Also if in a particular region, such as the Bemidji store, in a small northern Minnesota town, wants to promote something at a different price, or there is a change and what the insert says doesn’t apply to that store; the change is made in Bentonville Arkansas (Abello 2006). A possible reason for taking a closer look at how Wal-Mart is advertising, and promoting itself could be stock. “Wal-Mart’s stock is down 12 percent in the past year, compared with an 8 percent rise for rival Target.” (Kaiser, 2006, para. 22).
Wal-Mart began switching their advertising strategy about the middle of 2005. Stephen Quinn Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of marketing said, “For years we were quite focused on ourselves. The ads were set in the store environment and featured our associates.” Wal-Mart is trying its best to make the company look better. I know that in my head I would rather shop at Target, probably because the ads make the clothes seem stylish and they are affordable. Wal-Mart is trying to get more brands of clothing and more styles, so that they too can be thought of as stylish. Even in the ads that come out in the paper every week have seemed to change. They look higher class in how it’s laid out and what is put on the pages. Instead of putting their merchandise that is the cheapest, and maybe the best value, in the front, they are putting nice looking more pricey items on the front, they are most likely still the best deal around, but Wal-Mart is trying to market themselves as somewhat a “higher class store.” In the future I predict that marketing-wise, Wal-Mart will become very similar to one of their biggest competitors, Target. This is no big surprise since John Fleming worked in the marketing department at Target for twenty years (Howard, 2006, para. 8).
There was a consumer poll in USA TODAY by Ad Track conducted around the holidays. The purpose of this poll is to see how Wal-Mart’s new ads rated. Fifteen percent of the people who took the poll liked the ads very much. (The Ad Track average of different ads is around 21%). Of those who liked the ads, 19% were women and 9% were men. Wal-Mart sees this as a good thing, because women are the ones who normally go retail shopping. Out of the people who responded to the poll, 14% said the Wal-Mart ads are effective. (The Ad Track average is 20%). Wal-Mart is improving their ads, and trying to improve their image. They know this won’t happen quickly. It will take a course of a few years over to show people Wal-Mart is stylish (Howard, 2006, para. 18).
I compared inserts for Wal-Mart and Target. Both of them were advertising spring items and Easter merchandise. Target’s front page is colorful with Easter eggs, their “main attraction” Target had a “buy 2, get 1 free” deal for play station 2 games, Gamecube games, Xbox games and DVD’s. On the front, it also says you can mix and match games with movies. However, when reading the fine print, there is little selection in DVD’s. You can choose from eight Disney DVD’s, three of which are classics. The insert for Wal-Mart has a different approach for the same time of year. Still going with the Easter theme, there is a bunny in the corner, ducklings on the green grass, and Easter eggs around a little girl and boy who look like siblings, who are holding Easter baskets. Wal-Mart is going with the clothing side of Easter. Boys polo t-shirts, girls dresses, shoes, shirt and tie combinations. These are all fashions by GEORGE. It’s a pretty picture, spending Easter outdoors with clothes from Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart keeps the Easter theme throughout the rest of the insert, with Easter baskets, candy, and special Wal-Mart Easter gift cards. Target doesn’t have as much of a focus on Easter as Wal-Mart does. The kids clothes page has nice Easter clothes, it also has a candy and an assortment of Easter baskets advertised, but that’s about it.
There are differences between Target’s and Wal-Mart’s inserts also. The biggest difference was the size of the inserts. Wal-Mart’s only has four pages, because it focuses mainly on Easter. Target has Easter items, but also every other item they wanted to advertise. This difference is mainly because Target’s insert is for the week of April 2 through April 8, and Wal-Mart’s was for April 9 through April 15.
This Bentonville Arkansas based company has made billions of dollars. They are currently working on changing peoples views about Wal-Mart through it’s advertising. By adding merchandise, or different brands, expanding the marketing department, and by showing different sides of Wal-Mart through the advertisements. So far, it has seemed to work, however, they still have hard work in front of them and John and the rest of the company already know this. Wal-Mart is making slow but steady changes, and in time we will see what Wal-Mart’s new views are. They are no longer “Everyday Low Prices” but some ads are now saying, “Look Beyond The Basics.” With the steps Wal-Mart has been taking, I think it will be effective after time passes. These changes won’t show positive results Wal-Mart is looking for over night.
References
Abello, Andy. 2006. Class Lecture, Bangsberg. Bemidji Wal-Mart Store General Manager.
Howard, Theresa. (2006). Ads Try to Expand Customer Base. 2/22/2006. http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2006-02-19-track-wal-mart_x.htm
Kaiser, Emily. (2006). Holiday Advertising Boosts Wal-Mart. 2/22/2006. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060221/bs/nm/retail_walmart_earns_dc_4&printer=1;ylt
Ad Track: A weekly look at how much consumers like a major advertising campaign compared with other ads rated by this poll — and how effective they think the ads are in helping to sell the product.
Today's ad: Wal-Mart
Like the ads a lot
All respondents
15%
Ad Track survey average
21%
Among key target groups
Male respondents
9%
Female respondents
19%
Dislike the ads
All respondents
14%
Ad Track survey average
13%
Think they are very effective
All respondents
14%
Ad Track survey average
20%
Based on a nationwide poll of 823 adults who had seen the ads. Poll conducted Dec. 8-14; margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Overall average based on 490 ads. To subscribe to Harris Ad Research Service. All from the web site: http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2006-02-19-track-wal-mart_x.htm?c
Honors 1105, Wal-Mart
April 23, 2006
Wal-Mart Currently Improving Advertising
Have you ever wondered how a massive company like Wal-Mart advertises? Does such a large company need advertising? In general I would say no. They do however, need to advertise and let the consumers know what their sales, or clearance items are for the week. Wal-Mart has an insert in the newspaper showing what is on special. They also have television ads showing the look and feel of the store itself. In the past we have seen the bouncy smiley face rolling back prices. Now Wal-Mart has been taking steps to improve their advertising the past year. They have increased the marketing staff, have a relatively new chief marketer, and is taking a different approach to how they grab the consumers attention with television ads and newspaper inserts.
One of the first articles I came across was from Yahoo News. The article is titled “Holiday Advertising Boosts Wal-Mart.” It was written shortly after The Wal-Mart fiscal year ended. The article reported a “12.5% rise in quarterly profit.” The Wal-Mart holiday advertising focused on selling laptop computers and gift cards. They tried an aggressive campaign approach, which by looking at the numbers, worked. Wal-Mart launched their campaign on November first. The Wal-Mart company normally doesn’t start holiday advertising until the middle of November. Part of the aggressiveness came from starting the campaign almost two weeks early. An example of a special offer they had was laptop computers that cost less than four hundred dollars.
The strong holiday promotions drove up the November sales. December sales were not as strong as they would have liked; December’s sales were attributed to gift cards. Gift cards only count toward the stores revenue when they are used. For this fact, the January sales were better than expected.
For their holiday campaign, Wal-Mart television commercials had celebrities in them such as Destiny’s Child, Jesse McCartney, Garth Brooks, and Martina McBride. One of the many ads made had Beyonce Knolls from Destiny’s Child, and her family sitting at home, celebrating the holidays and all their gifts came from Wal-Mart. Beyonce and her family were singing Christmas carols and having quality family time together. This commercial was trying to show that you too can have a wonderful holiday with your family, if you buy your gifts at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart also put a spread in Vogue magazine to show their new styles. The ad with Jesse McCartney was promoting the more expensive gifts such as: Mp3 players, digital cameras and DVD players. He is a popular male pop singer. In the commercial he was using a portable music device. If he wants it, then everybody must want one is what I got out of the ad. I wasn’t affected by this ad very much, because I am not a huge fan of Jesse McCartney (Howard, 2006, para. 9).
This new holiday ad started in the fourth quarter (Howard, 2006, para. 4). Along with strong aggressive holiday ads, Wal-Mart is realizing there is more to promoting than “everyday low prices.” When you see the smiley face what do you think of? Wal-Mart? That happy yellow smiley face is always bouncing around the stores rolling back prices. Target’s ads, however, promote a “cheap-chic” style that is cute, stylish and affordable (Howard, 2006, para. 1). Wal-Mart is seeing this and wants to expand its customer base through its advertising. Wal-Mart has been doing this by putting more ads on the air, and adding merchandise to its stores that is more stylish. The chief marketer for Wal-Mart worked for Target for twenty years before working for Wal-Mart. John Fleming has tried his best to make the Wal-Mart ads more effective. He has expanded the marketing staff and the marketing budget. “Ad spending for 2005 was up 44% over 2004 to 1.4 billion dollars.” Fleming is still working on increasing the marketing staff to over 250 people. Just a few years ago there was only a handful of marketing staff (Howard, 2006, para. 8).
Wal-Mart does their marketing and advertising out of their home-store in Bentonville Arkansas. This is where all the newspaper inserts, television commercials, and any other advertising come from. Also if in a particular region, such as the Bemidji store, in a small northern Minnesota town, wants to promote something at a different price, or there is a change and what the insert says doesn’t apply to that store; the change is made in Bentonville Arkansas (Abello 2006). A possible reason for taking a closer look at how Wal-Mart is advertising, and promoting itself could be stock. “Wal-Mart’s stock is down 12 percent in the past year, compared with an 8 percent rise for rival Target.” (Kaiser, 2006, para. 22).
Wal-Mart began switching their advertising strategy about the middle of 2005. Stephen Quinn Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of marketing said, “For years we were quite focused on ourselves. The ads were set in the store environment and featured our associates.” Wal-Mart is trying its best to make the company look better. I know that in my head I would rather shop at Target, probably because the ads make the clothes seem stylish and they are affordable. Wal-Mart is trying to get more brands of clothing and more styles, so that they too can be thought of as stylish. Even in the ads that come out in the paper every week have seemed to change. They look higher class in how it’s laid out and what is put on the pages. Instead of putting their merchandise that is the cheapest, and maybe the best value, in the front, they are putting nice looking more pricey items on the front, they are most likely still the best deal around, but Wal-Mart is trying to market themselves as somewhat a “higher class store.” In the future I predict that marketing-wise, Wal-Mart will become very similar to one of their biggest competitors, Target. This is no big surprise since John Fleming worked in the marketing department at Target for twenty years (Howard, 2006, para. 8).
There was a consumer poll in USA TODAY by Ad Track conducted around the holidays. The purpose of this poll is to see how Wal-Mart’s new ads rated. Fifteen percent of the people who took the poll liked the ads very much. (The Ad Track average of different ads is around 21%). Of those who liked the ads, 19% were women and 9% were men. Wal-Mart sees this as a good thing, because women are the ones who normally go retail shopping. Out of the people who responded to the poll, 14% said the Wal-Mart ads are effective. (The Ad Track average is 20%). Wal-Mart is improving their ads, and trying to improve their image. They know this won’t happen quickly. It will take a course of a few years over to show people Wal-Mart is stylish (Howard, 2006, para. 18).
I compared inserts for Wal-Mart and Target. Both of them were advertising spring items and Easter merchandise. Target’s front page is colorful with Easter eggs, their “main attraction” Target had a “buy 2, get 1 free” deal for play station 2 games, Gamecube games, Xbox games and DVD’s. On the front, it also says you can mix and match games with movies. However, when reading the fine print, there is little selection in DVD’s. You can choose from eight Disney DVD’s, three of which are classics. The insert for Wal-Mart has a different approach for the same time of year. Still going with the Easter theme, there is a bunny in the corner, ducklings on the green grass, and Easter eggs around a little girl and boy who look like siblings, who are holding Easter baskets. Wal-Mart is going with the clothing side of Easter. Boys polo t-shirts, girls dresses, shoes, shirt and tie combinations. These are all fashions by GEORGE. It’s a pretty picture, spending Easter outdoors with clothes from Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart keeps the Easter theme throughout the rest of the insert, with Easter baskets, candy, and special Wal-Mart Easter gift cards. Target doesn’t have as much of a focus on Easter as Wal-Mart does. The kids clothes page has nice Easter clothes, it also has a candy and an assortment of Easter baskets advertised, but that’s about it.
There are differences between Target’s and Wal-Mart’s inserts also. The biggest difference was the size of the inserts. Wal-Mart’s only has four pages, because it focuses mainly on Easter. Target has Easter items, but also every other item they wanted to advertise. This difference is mainly because Target’s insert is for the week of April 2 through April 8, and Wal-Mart’s was for April 9 through April 15.
This Bentonville Arkansas based company has made billions of dollars. They are currently working on changing peoples views about Wal-Mart through it’s advertising. By adding merchandise, or different brands, expanding the marketing department, and by showing different sides of Wal-Mart through the advertisements. So far, it has seemed to work, however, they still have hard work in front of them and John and the rest of the company already know this. Wal-Mart is making slow but steady changes, and in time we will see what Wal-Mart’s new views are. They are no longer “Everyday Low Prices” but some ads are now saying, “Look Beyond The Basics.” With the steps Wal-Mart has been taking, I think it will be effective after time passes. These changes won’t show positive results Wal-Mart is looking for over night.
References
Abello, Andy. 2006. Class Lecture, Bangsberg. Bemidji Wal-Mart Store General Manager.
Howard, Theresa. (2006). Ads Try to Expand Customer Base. 2/22/2006. http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2006-02-19-track-wal-mart_x.htm
Kaiser, Emily. (2006). Holiday Advertising Boosts Wal-Mart. 2/22/2006. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060221/bs/nm/retail_walmart_earns_dc_4&printer=1;ylt
Ad Track: A weekly look at how much consumers like a major advertising campaign compared with other ads rated by this poll — and how effective they think the ads are in helping to sell the product.
Today's ad: Wal-Mart
Like the ads a lot
All respondents
15%
Ad Track survey average
21%
Among key target groups
Male respondents
9%
Female respondents
19%
Dislike the ads
All respondents
14%
Ad Track survey average
13%
Think they are very effective
All respondents
14%
Ad Track survey average
20%
Based on a nationwide poll of 823 adults who had seen the ads. Poll conducted Dec. 8-14; margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Overall average based on 490 ads. To subscribe to Harris Ad Research Service. All from the web site: http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2006-02-19-track-wal-mart_x.htm?c
posted by Louise Mengelkoch at
12:33 PM
