There are more than 4,600 Walmart brick-and-mortar stores spread across the U.S. But in promoting its new fashion collections and convenient online shopping experience, the brand wanted to engage consumers where they are—anywhere—and offer a trendy, luxe and convenient experience.
Kicking off the fall fashion season, Walmart in September launched the Walmart Style Tour, which hit more than 40 locations across the country, from New York to L.A. and Chicago to Dallas, with its final stops taking place this weekend.
Anchoring the tour is a shiny, two-toned blue Airstream that opens up to create a showroom experience, presenting styled looks like “Utility Chic,” “Denim on Denim” and “Elevated Essentials,” alongside shelves of accessories and racks of clothes built into the vehicle’s walls. Outside, furniture, rugs, clothing stands, mirrors and mannequins extend the pop-up’s footprint. Encouraged to “Find the things you love,” attendees can scan and shop via QR codes to have the apparel and accessories on display shipped to their homes.
“We were quite particular in ensuring that the Airstream itself and the entire experience was branded in a way that makes you do a double take,” says Kim Tunick, group director-brand experiences and partnerships at Walmart. “It’s not the particular blue and yellow that you expect to see from Walmart. It’s a bright, interesting blue. It’s on brand, but elevated a bit and chicer and more eye-catching. It even goes down to the subtleties of rounded edges on our signs. How would we imagine the modern Walmart of today? This is our interpretation of it.”
Style specialists are on hand to assist attendees with their selections, offering their expert takes on how to accessorize and mix and match different items from the Scoop and Free Assembly lines under creative director Brandon Maxwell. In addition to the one-on-one personal styling, Walmart jumped on the color analysis trend that has had millions of TikTok users questioning whether they’re a warm spring, deep autumn or cool winter by bringing in color analysts to help participants find their complementary season—further fine-tuning the shopping experience.
Consumers have been coming away with notes on their season and several free fall-themed goodies, including a Walmart-branded denim tote bag, a candle and an e.l.f. lipstick that can be engraved with names or initials on-site.
Focused on meeting customers where they are, Walmart chose a range of locations for the Style Tour, from festivals to parks to shopping centers, in established markets where the brand operates several stores and in growth markets like larger, densely populated cities where Walmart doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar presence. The dual approach, Tunick says, was about showing consumers another side of Walmart and driving traffic online to shop the brand’s fashion collections.
“We wanted to make sure that we were going to markets specifically where [our consumer] was, where she’s spending time, and not disrupting that in any way. It wasn’t about being disruptive; it was actually about being additive,” she says. “Let’s give her a moment of delight, instead of popping up in her social feed and trying to disrupt her in some way.”
Still, Walmart leveraged its local stores’ social media pages, as well as the national Walmart handle, to spread the word about the tour stops, and the brand partnered with influencers and talent to share about the event.
Coming away from the tour, Tunick says, “I wish we did this sooner,” citing overwhelmingly positive consumer feedback on its first style-focused activation, particularly from Gen Z attendees who were surprised by the trendy clothing on display. The brand has utilized AI tools and social listening for analysis, as well as survey data and brand ambassador interactions to better understand brand sentiment and shopping habits.
“We don’t have an awareness problem as Walmart, so what we want to prove is that these incremental touchpoints are creating more value and more valuable customers,” she says. “We try to not just look at attendance numbers; we look at deeper engagement, participation and really understanding what they’re thinking, feeling and doing because of this event.” Agencies: Momentum Worldwide, lead agency; Lime Media, vehicle builds.
