Wal-Mart’s New Face
The world’s largest retailer is embracing the conversation. Just recently Wal-Mart added customer reviews to Walmart.com. Yesterday, Wal-Mart launched the “Roommate Style Match” group on Facebook, with the hopes to engage Facebook’s college-age customers.
Wal-Mart said it expects to keep the “Roommate Style Match” Facebook group active until October 31, in hopes of capturing a good chunk of the back-to-school spend. According to a study conducted last year by the National Retail Federation, the average first-year college student spent $1,112.62, mainly on electronics and home furnishings.
The Wal-Mart Facebook group is being launched a month after Wal-Mart launched its “Site to Store” program, which lets customers order products on its Web site and have them shipped to a local Wal-Mart store for free.
The activities in this group let you take a quiz to determine your dorm style. You’ll then be given a list of items (sold at Wal-Mart) that are recommended for you, based on your style. These recommendation lists are downloadable, and also provide direct links to Wal-Mart’s retail site. To make it social, though, you’ll also be able to mesh styles with your roommate. Promoted in this group are eco-friendly products, as well as “Soundcheck” which is Wal-Mart’s website showcasing musical performances from singers like Bon Jovi and Mandy Moore.
Hopefully college students will have more luck joining the group than I did. I did a search for “Roommate Style Match” on Facebook and could not find the group. (Anyone who does, please add a link in the comments.)
I wonder how receptive college students will be to Wal-Mart’s new group. With the exception of this one, most groups found searching for Wal-Mart are quite uncomplimentary. How would you rate their chances of success in fostering conversation?
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Just logged in on Facebook and did a search “Wal-Mart”. The first result is “Wal-Mart College 07″ which is the Wal-Mart campaign we’re talking about. It had 64 members when I viewed it a couple of minutes ago.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2784351093
Thanks Vladimir. Ahhh but the name of the group is just “Wal-Mart”. It was practically invisible. Nothing cool or even just “Wal-Mart College ‘07.” They just have that in their image. The anti-Walmart group has almost 1300 members. Let’s keep an eye on it.
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