Wal-Mart Breaks Celeb-Heavy Holiday Ads

Wal-Mart Stores is getting an early start with its holiday image advertising, but still plans to play up price when the shopping season begins in earnest later this month.

Wal-Mart this week breaks an estimated $150 million image ad campaign starring celebs Garth Brooks, Destiny’s Child, Martina McBride, Jesse McCartney and Queen Latifah. TV, print, radio and online ads, themed “Home for the Holidays,” show the celebrities celebrating in their own homes. The spots showcase a range of gifts available at Wal-Mart, at several price points, in an effort to attract more upscale shoppers. Bernstein-Rein, Kansas City, MO, handles.

The retailer is planning a day-after-Thanksgiving promotion, but won’t give details yet.

“We’re being very aggressive on pricing and offering value in a wider range of products and categories than people might have expected before from Wal-Mart, [including] more technologically advanced and higher price-point electronics,” said Wal-Mart spokesperson Gail Lavielle.

“This campaign corresponds to our overall objective of being more relevant to the broad range of customers who shop in our stores,” said Wal-Mart CMO John Fleming in a statement.

Wal-Mart shifted money away from circulars and signage to fund media ads, but didn’t hike its overall budget.

“We’re staying within the marketing budget we defined for this year; we’ve just changed our [media] mix quite substantially,” Lavielle said.

Wal-Mart spent $198 million on measured media in fourth-quarter 2004, 33% of its total ad spending for the year, per TNS Media Intelligence.

The early break on image advertising doesn’t signal a shift away from aggressive pricing. That strategy stung Wal-Mart last year, when it pushed image instead of price cuts: November same-store sales rose a mere 0.7% when the retailer refrained from its typical heavy discounting (Xtra, Dec. 7, 2004). That prompted a belated price-promotion blitz and heavy advertising for December, boosting same-store sales 3%, per Wal-Mart.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart has also launched extended service plans for TV and computers over $300. The two-year plans, for sale in all Wal-Mart stores except in California, supplement manufacturer warranties. The warranties are managed by N.E.W. Customer Service Cos., which has handled extended service plans for Sam’s Club for 14 years and for Walmart.com for almost two years.