Category — Marketing
Walmart Life
Marketing chief Stephen Quinn taps into Walmart’s past to shape its future. When you get right down to it, everything — and nothing — has changed about Walmart in the 50 years since Sam Walton built his first store. Stephen Quinn, Walmart’s marketing chief, appears determined to keep it that way.
“What we’re really selling to people,” says Stephen, “is that they can count on us for their everyday needs at the lowest price. Keeping that interesting is tricky because it will be the same promise three years from now.”
It was also the same promise 50 years ago, which is why Stephen drew on something Sam Walton said a long time ago to arrive at Walmart’s modern-day tagline: “Save Money. Live Better.”
“Sam Walton talked about how Walmart would help the world save money and have a better life,” says Stephen. “We had reams of research and tested all these different taglines and then we just looked at what he had said and thought, hey, that’s pretty good.”
Living up to that deeply rooted principle is very much at the heart of Walmart’s past, present and future. Stephen is convinced that Walmart’s growth depends on “keeping that promise to more people.”
Such fidelity to the past requires changing with the times, too. It means navigating the vagaries of today’s fragile economy while pioneering the frontiers of social media and the newly empowered shopper.
These and other realities has Walmart launching a Facebook page for each of its more than 3,500 US stores, as well as tweaking the role of its famous greeters and communicating “low prices” in new ways.
It also has Walmart realigning its merchandising and marketing operations, so it can better integrate the two and keep the focus where Sam Walton always said it must be — on the shopper … read >>
May 1, 2012 Comments
Got Smarts?
A roundtable discussion on consumer and shopper insights, with Stephanie Cota of Mattel Brands, Hermann Deininger of Adidas, Sally Grimes of Newell Rubbermaid, Alfredo Martel of Caribou Coffee and Kevin Lane Keller of Dartmouth College.
What is the hardest thing to get right with consumers today?
Stephanie Cota: One of the hardest things to get right with consumers today is message authenticity. Consumers are very smart, and they are very pressed for time. They are increasingly intolerant of messages that are over-complicated or over-clever.
As a consumer, I also become challenged when watching a clever commercial but can’t necessarily tell you what the brand or product was. That said, some brands have done a great job of staying true to their message, both at a mass and a class level.
From a mass perspective, Campbell Soup and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese do a really great job of staying true to who they are. In the class space, Louis Vuitton and Manolo Blahnik are authentic with their messages. Staying true to your message, but delivering it in fresh, compelling ways, is one of the more challenging things that we do as marketers … read >>
May 1, 2012 Comments
The Pepsi Conversation
It’s like the Pepsi Challenge for the digital generation, says CMO Jill Beraud. An exclusive Q&A interview by Tim Manners.
(pdf) or (text)
May 1, 2010 Comments
Baby Love
March 1, 2010 Comments
Cracked Rear View
March 1, 2010 Comments
Stand By Me
November 1, 2009 Comments
Leading With Loyalty
November 1, 2009 Comments
Being Social
A discussion featuring Bonin Bough of PepsiCo, Aaron Magness of Zappos, Richard Binhammer of Dell, Bert DuMars of Newell Rubbermaid and John Andrews of Collective Bias. (pdf) or (text)
September 1, 2009 Comments
Open Up!
September 1, 2009 Comments
Digital Bridges
New research uncovers keys to successful digital-media integration. By Jim Garrity and
Kerry O’Connor.
September 1, 2009 Comments
Cool Books
September 1, 2009 Comments
Tug of War
A discussion featuring Simon Uwins of Fresh & Easy, Tom Britanik of Clorox, Rita Bargerhuff of 7-Eleven, Chris Heye of Welch’s and Masha Sajdeh of Arc Worldwide. (pdf) or (text)
July 1, 2009 Comments
ConAgra Culture
Consumer and shopper insights converge in ConAgra’s culture of collaboration. An exclusive Q&A with ConAgra Foods CMO Joan Chow by Tim Manners.
May 1, 2009 Comments
The Hub Top 12
May 1, 2009 Comments
Aisles Wide Open
Featuring Kim Feil of Walgreens, Barry Judge of Best Buy, Stew Leonard Jr. of Stew Leonard’s and Zain Raj of Euro RSCG.
May 1, 2009 Comments
Making Retail Magic
An emotional connection at retail pulls shoppers and creates loyalty. By Jim Porçarelli.
May 1, 2009 Comments
The Big Shift
Corporate culture needs to view consumer culture through a new lens. By Dori Molitor.
May 1, 2009 Comments
