Episode 103 - Walmart Ad Reviewed By Oppo, Amplifon and Your Marketing Chief
The latest episode of Advertisers Watching Ads is about Walmart’s efforts with ConTextos to bring Bedtime Stories to the children of incarcerated dads in Chicago. This powerful case study was chosen by Contagious and created by FCB Chicago, relying on scientific research about the importance of reading to kids and forming that early childhood bond with their parents.
Does the ad manage to shine a light on Walmart’s community outreach or does it fail to do enough for the brand? Is it a bigger, more serious commentary on the role of corporations vs governments in supporting communities? What do our guests Lee Ping (Marketing Director, KSA, at Oppo), Chiara Fracassi (Senior Marketing Director at Amplifon), and Mido Chishty (CEO & CMO at Your Marketing Chief Ltd) have to say about it?
Check out the full clip and the comments from our guests in the latest episode.
Automated Transcript
Episode 103 - Walmart Ad Reviewed By Oppo, Amplifon and Your Marketing Chief
Amy Wright 00:00
Welcome to this week's episode of Advertisers Watching Ads. I'm your host this week, Amy Wright, Client Strategy Lead for Automated Creative, standing in for Tom Ollerton. This week, we have a super commercial to be discussing. A concept and a project that has been chosen by our partners at Contagious. But without further ado, I'd love to introduce the guests for this week's episode.
Lee Ping 00:27
Hi, I'm Lee Ping from Oppo KSA. Marketing Director of Oppo, looking after marketing activities in Saudi Arabia.
Chiara Fracassi 00:35
Hello, everybody. I'm Chiara Fracassi, Marketing Director at Amplifon, the global leader of hearing health care and retail.
Mido Chishty 00:44
Hi, everyone, I'm Mido, Chief Marketing Officer. I'm a Marketing Chief working on specific projects in California and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Amy Wright 00:57
So for the episode this week, we are looking at a really interesting case study. Reading to children supports their cognitive development, helps develop their language skills, and creates a special bond with their parents. But can an app replace when parents are in prison? So Walmart and ConTextos have gone beyond physical limitations with their new app Bedtime Stories, developed in partnership with FCB Chicago. Here's the case study. It's a big one this week. On the count of three, I would love you all to hold up your hands. We're going to do a mark out of five. One, two, three... Cool. So again, a five. Come on, Chiara. She's going to go five. I'm kind of, I'm, I'm wavering. I do think just the ambition, it deserves it. What were your initial impressions when you first watched the case study?
Mido Chishty 04:26
I think they did it like in a smart way because it started with the dad reading. And you don't know that he's incarcerated. He's just reading. So it didn't kind of introduce it straight away, like, "Oh, we're Walmart and we're sponsoring this thing." But we just saw a normal dad reading. And then you realize that he's in prison and his child is not with him. So you kind of like get emotionally attached to the ad and you can kind of see it from a human level.
Chiara Fracassi 04:26
You know, we spend a lot of time talking about work-life balance, how, you know, parents should have time to, you know, to, to share experiences with their kids. But I think that's the real profound, the truth and very strong insight behind this commercial is that in this case, you don't only have a physical distance happening between the parent and the kid, but there is also a stigma and the shame associated to the fact that the parent in this case is incarcerated. So the spontaneous question that came to my mind is what's in it for institution, broader community? What is the responsibility? How this institution and community should contribute to give these children an opportunity to live a normal life?
Lee Ping 05:36
I think whoever from Walmart decided to tackle this issue, through this angle is very much innovative. But at the same time, when you look at the background story, they do, Walmart constantly contributing to the community as they say. So I think there is a bigger platform there. This conversation has always been going on whenever a Walmart supermarket open in a community or in a small city. The statistic shows that the, you know, the local salary has been cut and also that the labor force has been cut. And there was a law, small business had to close because of that. This is a dilemma. And also, I think this is a clever angle for Walmart to tackle this dispute. It would be much better if we can get some feedback from, from the community, Chicago, around that region and also small businesses to see how whether or not this initiative is effective.
Mido Chishty 06:31
Back to the subject of corporations have become responsible for things that like governments and other enforce... Police enforcement, etc. should be doing. So it's put again responsibility in the hands of organizations similar to sustainability, similar to diversity. It's like corporations now have to have that purpose and sense of responsibility. So it's kind of highlighting that. It's kind of like pushing the boundaries. But I think they did it in a very good tone because it's not an aggressive tone. It's very human.
Chiara Fracassi 07:05
The point I was missing in this advertisement is it's super relevant to be local. I mean, in this case was the Chicago County and that's perfectly fine. But my expectation as a consumer, but also as a marketer, being in the retail world would be, "Okay, now you have to create the platform to tell me more stories like that." Okay? Because this can be about, you know, kids of incarcerated people in Chicago. You can take any other different initiative which can be relevant. I don't know for the Philadelphia County or for Los Angeles County, I don't know. I mean, what is important is to be relevant to the local community. And I think this is the bit that I'm missing, you know, complete and straightforward declaration that this specific initiative belongs to a bigger picture because we are all aware of what Walmart does. But broadly speaking, we should be all aware of the power of being a physical retail in a local community.
Mido Chishty 08:01
When we go into like social programs, there is no set formula yet because a typical classical marketing. You've got your brand, you do your marketing plan, you do integrated campaigns. How is it campaignable? You do your KPIs and ROIs. What's it going to deliver? But in this new area, it's changing. The KPIs will be different, right? And you know, why am I bringing up? Because I've seen it in board discussions, you know, board level people, CEOs and so on. Yes, they're looking at numbers, but they're starting to look at sustainability, which you cannot change in one year. It's not a quick fix. Like, "Oh, I've got a template of marketing. I just kind of copy and paste it." It's something that you're going to make mistakes, you're going to try, it's going to work. You're going to try something that's going to fail, but you have to have that room for test and learn.
Lee Ping 08:56
If it were up to me, I would set two sets of KPI one I would preset a KPI is that whether or not this initiative is in line with our company or organization's long term purpose, if it's a sort of very sudden idea that everybody thinks is good, but it doesn't have long term maintainers then I wouldn't call it a successful campaign or ad or initiative. The second sets of KPI that I would use is the conversations they might stir.
Mido Chishty 09:26
This is a very controversial and sensitive topic, but you need to be brave enough to push it in front of people and brave enough to face the kind of conversation that can emerge out of something like that.
Amy Wright 09:40
Tricky conversation this week. Massive, massive thank you to all of our panel for a really considered and thoughtful discussion. A big thanks to everyone. This has been Advertisers Watching Ads, and we will pick up with you again next week.
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