Sears Arrives, ready for BTS

Back-to-school isn’t just an event anymore, it’s a season, as retailers reach out to kids who are becoming more important decision makers when it comes not only to school supplies, but also apparel and room decor. Despite the economic slowdown and any reluctance to spend during the current period, BTS has become the fashion season for tweens, teens and even twenty-somethings, and will be an even more important occasion to establish bonds with younger consumers.

With targeted promotions proliferating, retailers have acknowledged that they must pursue young people with trends as much as they pursue parents with discounts. The shift is plain to see throughout retailing, but particularly in the mid-tier, with comprehensive initiatives under way at Sears, JCPenney and Kohl’s.

Sears’ initiative is among the more comprehensive in retailing and uses extensive new media to build buzz. The economy may weigh on retailers this year, even as they try to build business, but knowledge that the current BTS season was going to be a rough one seems to have helped free up the creative juices.

Sears’ chief marketing officer Richard Gerstein told Retailing Today that back-to-school has emerged as the biggest annual opportunity for retailers who want to establish a relationship with young people. Its Arrive Lounge Web site is the hub of a youth marketing strategy—employing the back-to-school slogan, “Don’t Just Go Back. Arrive”—spun around teen and tween consumers. ArriveLounge.com offers interactive content based on Sears’ 2008 BTS assortment and features “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens, who did a long-format video for the site that appears as snippets in Sears television advertising.

While fresh in the marketplace, the Arrive Lounge initiative is based on marketing concepts that Sears has been developing over many months. “We started making a strategic shift to focus on the influencer, rather than the mom,” said Gerstein. “Mom has to feel good about Sears, and does. Mom feels the value. She feels Sears will provide what is appropriate for a child. But the tween, teen or young adult will feel Sears has the style to allow them to express themselves. They can make a statement when they go back to school and get off to a great start.

“With insight into the consumer that we’ve gathered, we said, ‘How are we going to help?’” he continued. “We came up with the idea that they’re not just going back to school, but they’re ready to arrive, and that became our theme.”

The overarching ‘Arrive’ concept has life beyond BTS, Gerstein said, and can help establish bonds between Sears and young shoppers. “The back-to-school time period is a foundation of building a longer-term relationship. The Arrive Lounge is something that keeps on going. It’s the Super Bowl of fashion for kids and gets things set up for the year,” he said. “You need to make a statement that Sears is the place for the teen and tween customer for fashion, for room fashions, for what’s needed for this to be a great year. Most of us live on a calendar year. Kids live on a school year.”

Timing isn’t everything, however. Gerstein said that reaching young people through their media of choice is critical if Sears is going to convince them that it is taking their concerns to heart and can deliver what they want. Thus, new media and viral marketing are critical to Sears’ Arrive plans. “Digital is a big part of their [teens’] lives,” he said. “They are interested in content, in things that help them go back to school. They are participating as part of the brand and they are used to participating, to helping develop brand concept. Look at things like Webkinz.”

Although participating in the Arrive Lounge can be as simple as virtually hanging out with friends, any virtual environment young people are going to find attractive these days needs to encourage participation, Gerstein said. So, the Web site encourages visitors to participate in a ballot that will select a male cast member who will star with Hudgens in the final episode of the five-part commercial series. The ballot feature had garnered 2 million votes by Aug. 1, Gerstein said.

Additional participation elements include a remix master that helps users create their own music videos and share them via YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. Another element on the site is registration for VIP Access Cards that furnish exclusive benefits, including entry into various contests and notification of exclusive sales at Sears and Sears.com ., not to mention a sweepstakes that features a top prize of a Vanessa Hudgens concert at the winner’s school and secondary awards of private jet and limo rides intended to usher students into the school year in style.

Also on the Web site is exclusive content from the upcoming MTV movie “The American Mall,” which includes Sears product integration, throughout. And Sears has partnered with 13 outside Web sites to create custom animation, virtual worlds and social networking applications to help drive young people to the online Arrive Lounge. Partners include Alloy.com , Disney and Nickelodeon.

Gerstein said that new media and viral marketing are rapidly becoming de rigueur for marketers who want to reach younger consumers. “Digital, in general, has to play a big role,” he said. “We continue to invest additionally in it, particularly among the tween target audience. That consumer is into digital so heavily. We want them to interact with our brand in a different way. The long-form version of Vanessa Hudgens’ music video is cut into different spots for television. We put that in our Arrive Lounge Web site for about four days while we aired the commercial, and it had a half-million views. A half-million people chose to go look at it.

“We can push a TV commercial at them, but we feel interaction is very powerful,” he continued. “They can see in our Vanessa blog content. It is about how she looks great, loves our clothes and is getting the consumer going to Sears to buy them. But building the relationship in context is something we want to do as a company. We can sell apparel and create a relationship, and we can invite people in to purchase all the great products we sell.”

For school-age consumers, BTS represents an opportunity that comes around once a year. At no other time are younger consumers involved in purchasing such a wide range of goods. Ultimately, the goal is to establish Sears as relevant to the younger consumer, otherwise, the retailer has no posture it can assume to drive sales except that of a low-price commodity provider.

“So relevance is important in general,” Gerstein said. “You always have to be providing a good value, particularly in this economic environment. You have to answer the question: ‘What am I getting for the price?’ We’re meeting their demand for fashion and quality for price paid, but also for service. Our stores also provide a different level of service than you might find in some mass stores. All things play a role in creating a good value occasion for customer.”

In developing its Arrive Lounge promotion, Sears has been building on strengths it has developed in apparel, Gerstein said. An element of that is in children’s business, where Sears offers a popular wear-out guarantee. But it’s not just a matter of kids. Gerstein said that many Sears locations have developed solid menswear operations, and the retailer is developing programs to make its stores more attractive apparel destinations for a wider range of consumers.

In the BTS space, Sears wants to build on its broader theme of the store as th