Slashdot links to this article in Advertising Age about Wal-Mart trying to cash in on the success of Myspace, the home of approximately 6.022×1023 teen-to-twenties angst blogs.
Wal-Mart is launching a highly sanitized, controlled and rather unhip site at walmart.com/schoolyourway. Teens are invited to create their own page, “show it to the world and win some fab prizes,” including a chance to have their videos appear in a Wal-Mart TV commercial.
Isn’t that what any teen is just dying to do? Get into a Wal-Mart commercial?
The site is an attempt at closing the trend gap Wal-Mart now faces as Target wins more teen-apparel dollars.
Have people that do Wal-Mart’s advertising actually been in a Wal-Mart store? It probably isn’t lack of trendiness that keeps teens out of Wal-Mart. it’s that Wal-Mart stores are only slightly more filthy and poorly arranged than a flea market. (I will give them this – their stores are on average cleaner than the HTML markup on most myspace pages.)
“Over the last year, we have been getting increasingly bad feedback from teen girls about Wal-Mart in contrast to Target — especially Wal-Mart’s apparent lack of cleanliness, messy layout and lack of stylish attire. This attempt at ‘we media’ is terrific. We’ll have to wait and see if it’s enough to overcome in-store issues.”
My guess is “no, it won’t overcome in-store issues”. Whatever junk they put on the web won’t change the fact that the stores are hell to shop in.
But that Wal-Mart site ought to be good for some cheap laughs.
For example, to participate in Wal-Mart’s content, you have to agree to this:
I represent that my Entry is my original creation and hereby grant to Sponsor the copyright and all other rights now known or hereafter existing to use my Entry throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in whole or in part, in edited, unedited or distorted form, in connection with this Contest, for any trade, advertising, or promotional purpose whatsoever, without review, approval, notification or payment from or to any person or entity, in all media now known or hereafter discovered. I understand and agree that Sponsor shall be entitled to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, license, create derivative works from and distribute or incorporate Entries into any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed throughout the universe, for any purpose whatsoever.
(emphasis mine)
And you say Wal-Mart wants global domination. Pah! They will stop at nothing short of dominating the entire universe!