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Unleashing a Season of Joy: How Walmart Is Connecting Brands With Shoppers in New Ways This Holiday

Oct. 29, 2021

4 Min. Read
4 Steps in Walmart Joy Shop on phone

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After last year’s lockdowns, customers are putting their whole selves into making the holidays as magical as possible this season. That’s why Walmart is introducing the “Joy. Fully” campaign, to help customers lean into the things they missed last year and celebrate being fully present this holiday.

As Walmart Connect recently published in our holiday playbook for advertisers, 66% of Walmart shoppers plan to be more thoughtful about the gifts they give this year, and 67% plan to cook more meals from scratch to celebrate this season’s holidays. That means brands have a huge opportunity to connect emotionally with our customers by bringing purpose and positivity to the season with meaningful – and delicious – experiences. But finding customers where they are continues to evolve, especially since the last two years have triggered dramatic changes to shopper behaviors. Consumers increasingly discover products through emerging forms of content-to-commerce including shoppable livestreams, shoppable posts, and shoppable ads.

Over the last year, Walmart has successfully tested different forms of content-to-commerce to give customers new ways to engage with our brand and shorten the distance from inspiration to purchase. And for the first time this holiday, Walmart Connect is offering holistic programs that bring together media across our own digital properties, omnichannel integrations, in-store activations as well as new forms of shoppable media through our strategic partnerships.

New omni-channel touch points, innovative tools and partnerships to connect customers with trusted brands

Shoppable content

Holiday Shoppable Livestreams: We continue to innovate and chart new territory with shoppable livestreaming. With promising engagement, increasing viewership and positive shop signals, Walmart will continue to inspire shoppers this holiday with a series of on- and off-platform shoppable livestreams with various publishers, well-known influencers, and more.

Shoppable Recipes: As part of the “Joy. Fully” campaign, “Taste. Fully” will amplify mouthwatering food ideas across social platforms. On Pinterest, we have co-created innovative shoppable experiences for the first large-scale launch of shoppable recipes with supplier partners like General Mills, Kraft and PepsiCo. The initiative inspires with delicious cooking and baking recipes, and gives customers the ability to seamlessly add a recipe-worth of ingredients to their Walmart cart and purchase in just a few clicks. And through the exclusive Pinterest Trend Badge program – which taps into high-growth searches with the official Pinterest stamp of approval – Walmart Connect is promoting these shoppable recipes to inspire pinners with the most relevant and of-the-moment seasonal ideas, like “easy bite-size desserts” which are up 462% year over year.

First-to-market AR interactive shopping experience

We’ve partnered with Facebook to launch a first-to-market AR lens retail experience, which will make the holiday research and shopping experience fun again by combining the best of facial-recognition AR with Walmart’s unbeatable product assortment. Customers can use this interactive experience to browse holiday gift ideas from brands like Google, Nintendo, The LEGO Group, Samsung and Straight Talk Wireless, and use nothing but their facial expressions to identify which items spark joy for them. Then, directly from the AR lens, customers can visit Walmart’s Gift Finder experience to shop those products and more.

“Over the last year, General Mills has increased our focus on the concept of Connected Commerce – which is about building brands across both physical and digital worlds. Powered by data, digital capabilities, measurement and execution, this approach enables us to be part of the consumer journey and driving differential growth for our brands,” said Sri Rajagopalan, Chief Omnichannel Commercial Officer for General Mills. “Partnering with Walmart Connect and its growing omnichannel capabilities allows us to continually expand our reach with Walmart customers and meet the shopper in multiple places.”

As America’s #1 retailer – and a leader in retail media – Walmart is uniquely positioned to help brands find and reach shoppers where they are to create meaningful experiences with customers this holiday. Brands who partner with Walmart Connect for their holiday campaigns can expect to experience incredible performance during the season. For example, our Q4 2020 campaigns in the Food, Apparel, Consumables and Toys categories saw 13% higher reach and achieved 20% higher ROAS* compared to a non-holiday quarter. With our newly expanded capabilities, partnerships, supplier integrations and customer activations, we’re excited to unlock an even wider range of omni-channel touch points this holiday to connect brands with customers through innovative technologies and inspiring social content.

* Walmart First Party Data, October 2021


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