Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

USA Today Headline: Wal-Mart’s weak sales dampen holiday season hopes

Hmmm. Are people finally tired of buying cheap stuff? Mebbe, mebbe not. As I’ve written before, All Empires Fall.

For Thanksgiving, I visited my Mom in Antlers, Oklahoma (”The Deer Capital of the World”). Antlers is a tiny, very poor town equidistance from airports in Dallas, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City. So, I rent a car and drive for about two and a half hours after landing. This is the “fly-over” country that politicos and big company marketers talk about but seldom visit or understand. And, let me tell ya - it’s wayyy different that living in even a small “middle of nowhere” city such as Albuquerque.

The big thrill of the trip was taking Mom to the Super Wal-Mart in Hugo, Oklahoma. Normally, I never set foot in a Wal-Mart, but then I don’t think many Wal-Mart marketers do either. Folks in rural Oklahoma have different needs, budgets, and lifestyles than Wal-Mart shoppers in places like Albuquerque, much less Dallas. True, they also have less shopping choices (No Targets, Best Buys, etc.) - but they can choose to just not buy whatever Wal-Mart puts out there.

Wal-Mart was originally successful because of Sam Walton’s small-town, rural model, selling a lot of basic stuff at a cheap price. They didn’t go to big cities or try to compete with other flashier, more expensive stores. Over the past few years, they’ve moved away from these basics, in a effort to grow ever bigger. This when Joe Bob and Billy Jean out in Antlers can’t afford even Target prices for home decor, don’t drink (even) good wine (”Pinot What???”) and can’t wear low-rider skin-tight pants (and when they do, they really, really shouldn’t.) As noted in the NYT, “The average Wal-Mart shopper lives in the suburbs, is roughly 5-foot-2 and wears a size 14.” (Full Disclosure: My given name is Mary Bob so I know that of which I speak. The people in My Name is Earl could be my family. Wicked funny and I can relate.)

Then today, I read of Big Wallie’s firing of its high-gloss marketing executive, Julie Roehm (and you can bet she can afford and fit into Size 2 Armani pantsuits). While her activities sound silly - she could have actually been what the company needed. But, their core problem isn’t the glitz, it’s the Joe Bobs and Billy Jeans. If they ain’t buyin’ and I’m not buying - how is the company going to grow? The company has inherent strategy, culture and operations problems that can’t be fixed by even the most creative advertising. And, even if they could - Wal-Mart has also fired the ad agency Ms. Roehm had chosen, so it’s back to square one for creativity.

Say they somehow quickly fix the inherent problems, what then? They’d still have to deal with the old-style traditional advertising machines that are increasingly ineffective. (Satellite television is widespread in Oklahoma, in even the poorest towns - so the Wal-Mart targets can choose to never, ever see a commercial.) Here’s a snippet from today’s article that sums up that problem:

Executives at the agency had been ecstatic to land the Wal-Mart account, which they viewed as a ratification of a merger that married the traditional advertising experience of Foote Cone & Belding with the specialty services of Draft in areas like direct marketing and database management.

So, they were going to load Joe Bob, Billy Jean, and their fellow Oklahomans into a huge database, slice and dice it, and then bombard them with direct mail and commercials for products they don’t want, don’t need, can’t afford or all three. “Traditional Advertising Experience” indeed.

Related Posts:
You CAN Beat Wal-Mart - Just Not on Price
The Anti-Wal-Mart

Tags: advertising, sales, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, target marketing Wal-Mart