The BlogHerald had this to say:
Unfortunately for Wal-Mart, many of the youth did not seem too impressed with the site, which may have to do with the actors half baked attempts at appearing cool.
TechDirt added:
It's not clear that the site ever had any users, though the company apparently tried propagating the site with fake profiles of hip kids wearing Wal-Mart gear. The dead giveaway was that the kids were talking about Wal-Mart clothes in their profiles.
Market-Day says:
Among the cool-challenged items on the Wal-Mart page is a video showing actors-as-teens cavorting merrily, and a sub-page, "Beth's Backyard Club," where you find a picture of "Beth" in a strapless prom dress with such cut-line gems as "I'll school my way by looking hot in my Wal-Mart clothes to school to catch a cute boy's eye..."
"Some of the kids looked like they were trying to be supercool, but they weren't at all, and they were just being kind of weird," said Amy Kandel, 14, of Columbus, Ohio, speaking with Ad Age. "Are these real kids?"
"Some of the kids looked like they were trying to be supercool, but they weren't at all, and they were just being kind of weird," said Amy Kandel, 14, of Columbus, Ohio, speaking with Ad Age. "Are these real kids?"
My take? Had a decent PR firm taken this and ran with it, it might have gone well. Instead, the bozos in charge of writing these profiles neatly nixed this one (in addition to whoever posed these catalog model kids) for the supercenter behemoth.
Kids aren't stupid and being pandered to isn't something today's teens have to take. I'll leave you with this sad ending for WalMart from Market-Watch:
"Wal-Mart really needs this to work," said Irma Zandl of youth-marketing firm Zandl Group. "Over the last year, we have been getting increasingly bad feedback from teen girls about Wal-Mart in contrast to Target -- especially Wal-Mart's apparent lack of cleanliness, messy layout and lack of stylish attire. This attempt at 'we media' is terrific. We'll have to wait and see if it's enough to overcome in-store issues." (my emphasis)
Note: Zandl Group thinks the WalMart attempt was terrific? They're a youth-marketing firm? I'm utterly speechless.
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