Walmart: SEE FOR YOURSELF RECEIPT CHALLENGE

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: WALMART
Agency: STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP
Category: Retail and E-Commerce, including Restaurants
Advertising campaign: SEE FOR YOURSELF RECEIPT CHALLENGE
Chief Executive Officer: Dean Waters (VIMBY)
Chief Executive Officer: Alex Lopez Negrete (Lopez Negrete)
Marketing Manager: Alex Nates (Walmart)
Director East Gbu: Jeff Muench (Walmart)
Senior Manager Broadcast Production: Kathrine Mowrey (Walmart)
Chief Creative Officer: David Goffin (VIMBY)
Senior Manager Advertising: J.d. Schupp (Walmart)
Director Multicultural: Sharonda Britton (Walmart)
Senior Director: Matt Taliaferro (Walmart)
Vice President Activation Director: Terry Berlin (Starcom MediaVest Group)
Account Supervisor: Corey Lane (The Martin Agency)
Account Director: Elizabeth Jones (The Martin Agency)
Senior Vice President Production: Adam Reno (VIMBY)
Senior Director: Andy Johnson (Walmart)
Marketing Manager: Julianne Hall (Walmart)
Connections Associate Director: Kate O'Hara (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Strategy
As the nation’s largest retailer and leading advertiser in its category, Walmart has long relied upon scale to reinforce its core “everyday low price” (EDLP) message. By late 2010, it appeared that EDLP was diminished on an individual market level as grocers and pharmacies ran powerful weekly sales in local media channels.To show moms that they save more when they buy everything at Walmart, we had to disprove the long-held belief that sale deals are the best deals. Shoppers will almost always save more at Walmart when comparing their total purchase and Walmart will even match competitors’ prices. If we could successfully communicate all of this, we believed we would bring moms back to Walmart in droves. Therefore, we put forth a plan to make the world’s largest retailer more competitive, taking on local retailers on their own turf, to offer concrete savings proof to shoppers.

Execution
Walmart recruited real, non-Walmart shoppers in seven struggling markets to participate in an “experiment,” where they were asked to shop their list at their usual store, and then do it again with a host who would recreate that shopping trip at Walmart. At the register, the host revealed her grand total, showing that the same items all together cost less at Walmart. The Walmart Receipt Challenge was born. The experiments were translated into TV spots with a running price comparison ticker for increased believability; however, while the spots were compelling, the prices were only relevant for 7 days. Leveraging relationships with local media partners, we systemized a groundbreaking way to get new TV spots on air within 48 hours. Using a content-developer to facilitate and drive efficiency (15% cost of a traditional TV ad), we ran new spots each week for 29 weeks customized for 34 different cities.

Effectiveness
In the first two quarters of the year, traffic is up by 1% or 100 basis points in campaign markets. This surpassed Walmart’s expectations by 30 basis points. That equates to 24 million more transactions vs. year ago in the first 26 weeks, just short of 1 million transactions per week. And the change seems to be enduring – over 65% of households showed increased trip frequency even after the local campaign ended. And Bill Simon, President and CEO of Walmart U.S., stated that the campaign has been “terrific for the business” with further expansion of the campaign in 2013.