Walmart: Wally & Marty

Situation:

Walmart’s strength as the leading every-day retailer was a liability during the holidays – when finding the hottest “must-have” toys trumped Walmart’s value mantra.

Solution

We created the retail giant’s first-ever kid equity characters from scratch embodying Walmart’s promise of “Quality Toys”. Wally and Marty, our two renegade elves were at the center of our multi-faceted “Wish List” program. They created the circuitry for an ongoing dialogue between kids and moms about how Walmart could make their holiday dreams come true. Wally and Marty were hardwired to populate a demanding range of channels from in-store, on-line, catalogues, advertising, digital comics, partnerships and more.

Results

• In its first year, our Wish List campaign increased sales $430MM.
• Our “Toyland of the Future” test stores saw initial sales increases averaging 39% vs. same store sales for the first 2 months vs. stores that did not participate. Stores realized a 23% increase over non-Toyland stores in 2008.
• Stores with the Walmart catalog program enjoyed a $229MM in incremental sales, a 228% sales increase
• Moms were 88% more likely to buy a toy from Walmart if her kid showed it to her in the Walmart catalog

See adidas’ Captain Velocity…