A Holiday Feast of Nostalgia From Walmart

We all know how well cultural references can work in ads. Give the audience something they recognize from a favorite movie or TV show and it literally engages a different part of their brain from the standard product sales pitch. Shout-outs to pop culture attract the “broad-beam” attention of the right side of the brain, which helps build and reinforce positive perceptions of brands and helps long-term effectiveness.

So what happens when you include not just one cultural reference but a whole Christmas stocking full? That’s what Walmart have done in their Holiday ad created with Publicis Groupe agencies, with a commercial designed to keep the store top of mind across the whole holiday season from Thanksgiving through Black Friday and onto Christmas. The ad has clips from Gilmore Girls, Spongebob Squarepants, The Simpsons and more, in a supercut of heartfelt moments when someone gets the perfect gift they wanted. The message is clear – at Walmart, you can make that moment happen yourself.

An ad that’s a collage of familiar faces isn’t a completely new approach at Christmas – Disney’s annual ad usually spans their range of IP, for instance. But it’s usually the preserve of media owners rather than retailers. Walmart are making a bold move and standing out from competitors, who are mostly relying on comedy or storytelling ads to move their holiday needles.

But it’s in keeping with other Walmart ads which have successfully tapped into pop culture nostalgia – like their “Mean Girls” recreation for Black Friday last year. As the millennial generation age into their 40s, nostalgic look-backs are becoming bigger and bigger business, and the shows and movies of their youth are fertile ground for advertisers wanting to bring back warm fuzzy memories.

That’s only effective if it happens alongside strong branding and an entertaining commercial, though, so let’s see how Walmart performed on the Test Your Ad platform with this montage.

The ad hit a 4.2-Star Rating for long-term effectiveness, which is a strong score and predicts solid growth potential from the ad. For a holiday ad, though, it’s often more useful to look at the short-term Spike – after all, retailers want to get customers through their doors in the busiest time of the year. And on Spike, the Walmart commercial gets an Exceptional score – predicting a very successful impact on short-term sales. And on Brand Fluency – speed and accuracy of recognition – it’s another Strong result.

Walmart and Publicis should be pleased with these scores. They’ve tried something a little different for retailers with this campaign, so it’ll cut through against competitors, and it’s succeeding on both long- and especially short-term effectiveness metrics. Nostalgia is not a completely risk-free strategy, but Walmart have got the balance right between happy memories of yesterday and happy customers today.

Get Into the Holiday Spirit With Our Christmas Advertising Playlist!