Soap Opera Digest Revisits Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores will host Soap Opera Digest’s in-store promotion this fall, for the third time.
The Shop Like a Soap Star campaign gives the magazine’s advertisers a spotlight in 100 Wal-Mart supercenters in 14 cities.
The effort runs the first week of October. Soap Opera Digest is pitching advertisers now, but hasn’t signed any so far, said marketing director Jessica Thorne.
The magazine has worked with 15 brands over the past two years, including Procter & Gamble’s Tampax, Always and Secret, General Mills’ Hamburger Helper, BIC, Quaker, Riesen, Lysol, McCormick and Huggies Pull-Ups. It’s unclear yet whether any will return, Thorne said.
Advertisers get in-store sampling and demos, with P-O-P and shelf-talkers in the aisles directing shoppers to sampling tables. Soap Opera Digest uses UPC scanner data to measure sales for participating brands; last year, brands saw sales rise as much as 30%, according to Soap Opera Digest publisher Susan Severance. McCormick’s spice sales jumped 30%; Quaker saw the smallest increase, 1%, for its Chewy Snack Bar.
In-store demonstrators will hand out 100,000 reprints of a special advertising section from the Oct. 9 issue of Soap Opera Digest.
That issue carries a shopper’s guide and interviews with popular soap stars talking about their shopping habits and favorite products. Additional Shop Like a Soap Star content will be posted at SoapOperaDigest.com.
A sweepstakes that runs in the issue and on the Web site will award a grand-prize trip to New York for dinner with a soaps star. Fans enter the random-draw sweeps through a mail-in entry form in the Oct. 9 issue and online; Soap Opera Digest will not distribute sweepstakes information because that’s against Wal-Mart policy, Thorne said.
Soap Opera Digest handles the program in-house; The Sunflower Group handles in-store sampling and demos.
