Emotional involvement in advertising and branding can be a critical component of driving sales. Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is banking on this strategy by changing their slogan from "Always Low Prices" to "Save Money. Live Better."
For nearly two decades, Walmart has successfully used the "Always Low Prices" slogan, but facing declining sales, the company has decided to focus on developing a more emotional campaign. The new slogan will be used in ads featuring customers sharing stories about how Walmart helped them save money. Will it work?
I'm reserving judgment on this one. My first reaction was to think I don't associate my visits to Walmart with an emotional experience. The service is usually terrible, and I generally just want to get out as fast as I can. It's never occured to me that Walmart could help me live better. I usually end up leaving Walmart annoyed.
Walmart based their new emotional advertising strategy and slogan on research conducted by Global Insight. The research helped Walmart discover one very interesting fact. As of 2006, Walmart saves American families $2,500 per year (up 7.3% from 2004). That's $287 billion for all consumers or $957 per person. Now, that's an interesting statistic.
Walmart always tells consumers that their prices are the lowest around, but seeing that claim in hard numbers makes it much more compelling. Knowing that if I do my shopping at Walmart, I'll save $2,500 for my family per year definitely makes me think twice about shopping at Walmart versus other stores like grocery stores, electronic stores, toy stores, etc.
I'd suggest that Walmart use those numbers in their ads or slogan. What if they used copy that said something like, "Want to save $2,500 for your family this year? Shop at Walmart." Or maybe they could say, "Need an extra grand? Shop at Walmart." Can you think of any other slogans that Walmart might use? What do you think of Walmart's new slogan, "Save Money. Live Better."?
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