Seuss-inspired Whimsy Wins for Walmart

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Holiday ads often stand alone as beautiful pieces of storytelling, separate from wider brand campaigns. But they don’t have to feel disconnected. Walmart’s new ad, brought to us by several Publicis agencies in co-operation, shows how a brand can seamlessly make its festive ad part of a wider creative platform.

The story of Walmart’s Christmas ad actually starts back in June, with the launch of the brand’s new “Who Knew?” platform and tagline. The point of “Who Knew?” is to get consumers to take a fresh look at one of the most ubiquitous and familiar retail brands in America. People may think they know what Walmart is and the range of things it offers – but truly? They don’t, and the campaign shows that the store is full of goods you didn’t know Walmart carried, and value you weren’t expecting.

That’s a message custom-made for a holiday ad. Whether someone’s a loyal Walmart shopper, or a gift-seeker who wasn’t expecting to find much there, Walmart can provide. This ad fits into the wider “Who Knew?” platform without missing a beat, but also brings the warmth of holiday specific creativity with a hefty nod to Dr Seuss.

The ad spotlights Walmart’s mobile app through the story of “WhoKnewVille”, a take on Dr Seuss’s classic Whoville. Fortunately, nobody’s coming to steal Christmas but the festive season is still very confusing for the inhabitants of WhoKnewVille – they don’t know what to buy or where to buy it. Enter Mindy Lou Who, whose wishes are rewarded with mobile devices pointing the town’s way to Walmart, which has a surprisingly stylish set of gifts on offer.

What does our Test Your Ad platform have to say about Walmart’s commercial? The ad excels particularly on the short-term and brand-recognition metrics. It scores an Exceptional rank in both Spike Rating (predicting sales gains) and Brand Fluency (showing near-total recognition for the Walmart brand). For a limited-run holiday ad, that’s exactly the kind of result Walmart wants.

Test Your Ad also offers diagnostic meastures which allow creative guidance on how to make a great ad even better. The “Who Knew?” ad lands a 4.4-Star Rating predicting strong long-term effectiveness. That’s already excellent, and well over the norm for a retail ad. But could it go higher?

Looking at the moment-by-moment emotional Trace we can see that the ad’s Happiness plateaus a bit during the later stages where it’s mostly about showing products. A final joke or whimsical touch might have pushed “Who Knew?” into the 5-Star bracket.

The ad gets two really big things right. It’s creatively consistent with Walmart’s existing campaign, building on the “Who Knew?” strategy and taking it to fresh, more emotional places. That consistency will help the campaign in the longer term. And the second thing it does well is a great use of a cultural reference. Doctor Seuss, and especially The Grinch That Stole Christmas, are an inseparable part of the American festive season. Paying tribute to his charm and poetry gives Walmart a boost to attention and happiness. In a turbulent moment for the US economy and many individual families, Walmart’s nostalgia hits the right spot.

(To see whether your own holiday ad leaves audiences grinning or Grinching, talk to System1 about the Test Your Ad platform.)