Walmart expands digital marketing efforts on TikTok, Roblox
Walmart Inc. is promoting romance novels on TikTok and enhancing its Roblox offering with augmented reality.
The discount giant, which announced in September 2023 that it would deepen its commercial activity in "virtual worlds," is joining a rapidly growing community of book-lovers on TikTok and adding an omnichannel AR extension to its “Walmart Discovered” Roblox experience.
Following are brief overviews of each new Walmart digital marketing initiative:
TikTok
Walmart, which has been partnering with TikTok since 2020, is launching a campaign it calls "Spicy Summer" on BookTok, a community on TikTok with more than 250 billion views from a group of readers discussing their favorite books.
The community, which is focused on the romance and fantasy genres, has developed a "spice scale" to rate the spiciness of their favorite reads. Marketing to the BookTok community, Walmart has created a limited-edition Spicy Books Hot Sauce set.
Packaged to look like a book, this proprietary collection features five Melinda’s hot sauces, each corresponding to a level on the spice scale, from mild to burning. In addition to Spicy Books Hot Sauce, Walmart’s dedicated Spicy Summer landing page will also allow customers to shop summer books, fashions and accessories, with collections inspired by popular Spicy Books selections.
"Customers are at the center of everything we do at Walmart, and we look to places where they are spending their time to create genuine moments of connections with them," said Courtney Killingsworth, director of brand marketing, Walmart. "This campaign is the perfect way to reach and celebrate BookTokers and the community they thrive in. We’re giving a wink to BookTok fandom with our Spicy Books Hot Sauce, and then expanding to a larger customer base by bringing some spice to all summer must-haves."
Roblox
In an email to Chain Store Age, a Walmart spokesperson said the retailer has developed an AR extension for its Walmart Discovered Roblox environment in partnership with Sawhorse on the Niantic 8th Wall platform.
It allows customers inside Walmart Discovered to enter an immersive shopping experience where they can uncover a free monthly virtual item unlocked with the purchase of a Roblox gift card at Walmart.
The AR extension also enables Roblox users to find a curated assortment of top-rated avatar items and new experiences from community creators on Roblox and complete a monthly quest supported by loyalty platform Flaunt to earn limited-edition user generated content (UGC).
In addition, users can try on and buy the avatar items directly in Walmart Discovered from the AR experience. Customers will be able to obtain access to the AR experience from in-store displays, a dedicated landing page on Walmart.com, and other promotional touchpoints.
The experience displays six indie experiences and games built by creators on Roblox; customers will be able to see a glimpse inside of the experience and click-through to visit Roblox.
"Today, we’re thrilled to launch the Walmart Discovered AR Experience, the first-ever immersive augmented reality experience that allows customers to step inside a Walmart-branded Roblox destination from the real-world," Justin Breton, Walmart director of brand experiences & strategic partnerships, said in an email to Chain Store Age.
"This new, innovative experience helps deepen our relationship with our growing Roblox community and allows them to discover and shop for things they love on the platform, all created & curated by members of the community," Breton said in the email. "The AR experience connects our in-store Roblox gift card business with our on-platform brand destination, ultimately shortening the distance between inspiration and commerce for the Roblox fandom."
Headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart Inc. operates approximately 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites in 19 countries.