Walmart Canada has given itself a facelift after extensive consumer research showed its “typical” customer wasn’t exactly what its marketing team envisioned.
According to Jeff Lobb, Walmart’s Canadian vice-president of marketing, the retail giant had long used a customer model—a composite named “Linda”—based on demographic research to shape how it dealt with consumers.
“It felt like there was a huge opportunity to have more than one target consumer and we needed more information beyond demographics to do that,” said Lobb. “Linda’s habits were understood as they related to groceries [and] health and beauty, but obviously we sell general merchandise and apparel too… We needed greater detail, not just ‘female head of house.’ ”
Lobb initiated a study of 3,000 Walmart customers last November through the American research firm Impact. That study broke “Linda” down into three core groups: price-value shoppers, “price-sensitive affluents” and the younger-skewing “brand aspirationals.”
Each group shops at a different income level and for different products, and Walmart will now target each with a new campaign from JWT Canada, Walmart’s agency of record since May 2007.
Some advertising will remain price- and product-focused, using the long-standing “rollback” concept.
However, that will be accompanied by ads that ask “What will you do with your Walmart savings?”
“We know that the price-value shopper over-indexed in the consumption of TV,” Lobb said. “So we’re refining our media strategy to play harder around family TV. Brand aspirationals over-index online, so that’s an opportunity to play harder with Walmart.ca.”
All marketing materials will now bear the company’s new tag line, “Save Money. Live Better,” and redesigned logo, both of which were implemented in the U.S. last year.
The new look and logo were introduced by president and CEO David Cheesewright to a meeting of store managers in Toronto yesterday.
“Today, more and more Canadians are wondering how to save money and live better, and we know Walmart will be an important part of that equation,” said Cheesewright, in a release. “Our new slogan is more than just marketing—it’s a business principle. This year we expect Walmart’s price rollbacks to save our customers more money than ever, leaving them more for life’s other priorities.”
Check the Marketing blog for examples of Walmart’s new ads as they become available.
