Walmart+ is preparing for Mother’s Day with a second iteration of its “Mother of All Savings Memberships” campaign. While last year’s effort focused on new moms like Cardi B and Stephanie Beatriz, this year’s iteration, titled “Moms Answer Moms,” enlists celebrities with kids of all ages, including Paris Hilton and Whitney Cummings, as they answer top questions from social media.
“We know that moms are constantly looking to other moms for advice in real life, particularly on social, so we decided to take our 2.0 version of this campaign a step further by enabling a two-way conversation for mom advice on TikTok,” said David Hartman, vice president for creative at Walmart.
The full cast, which also includes actors Tia Mowry and Aislinn Derbez and influencers Kat Stickler and Barbara “Babs” Costello, is featured in a video launching today (April 22) that is running as a TikTok TopView ad. The format is a full-screen, sound-on offering that appears when users open the app. Consumers are encouraged to comment with their questions, which will be answered by the celebrities on TikTok on April 23 and April 24 in the vein of a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread.
While Walmart is aiming to provide tips on everything from sleep training to meal planning, viewers should also expect mentions of how its Walmart+ subscription service saves moms time and money thanks to free shipping, fuel savings, Paramount+ video streaming and other benefits. Unlike last year’s effort, which provided “hacks” for new moms, this year’s aims to connect with moms at all stages of motherhood. The Walmart+ campaign comes as rival Target makes a significant marketing push behind its recently launched Circle 360 subscription plan.
“We wanted to expand and connect to a more diverse group of moms with kids that range all the way from infants to adults,” Hartman said. “The criteria that we think is really important is finding moms … who can tell it like it is, so they’re straight-up and honest in their answers about what it means to be a mom, and then have the kind of following on TikTok that’s most going to resonate with the audience that we’re trying to reach.”
Tapping into TikTok
TikTok was a “natural fit” for the campaign as an app where moms go to have conversations about motherhood, according to Hartman. About 60% of millennials on TikTok are parents, the executive said. Despite a reputation as a platform geared toward Gen Zers, TikTok for years has boasted about a diverse user base with a strong millennial and Gen X following.
Asking questions on Monday and delivering celebrity answers on Tuesday and Wednesday is no small feat, but aligns with Walmart’s aim to put the brand into culture and culture into the brand, as Hartman has previously explained to Marketing Dive. That insight has driven recent creative output, including an Andy Cohen campaign around Quitter’s Day, a “Mean Girls” reunion for Black Friday and a shoppable rom-com.
“We think about our customers and our prospective members who want to be able to produce content at the speed of retail and the speed of culture,” the executive said. “You’re going to continue to see more of that from us around social content and content that best relates to where the audiences that we’re trying to reach [are].”
For now, Walmart’s audience is on TikTok, a platform that the retailer has been experimenting with for years, from shoppable livestreams to integrations with its retail media network. In 2020, the company was part of a proposed deal alongside Oracle that would have created a U.S. company to run the app, which remains a political hot button. Legislation that could ban TikTok in the U.S. unless it cuts ties with Chinese parent company ByteDance could soon become law, upending daily routines for users and marketers who have flocked to the platform.
“We are constantly evaluating our partnerships with platforms, and our media team does an incredible job of assessing kind of where things are, where they’ve been and where they’re likely to head,” Hartman said. “Our plans haven’t changed based on anything we’ve seen… But as always, we’re going to adapt as things continue to evolve.”
