Retail giant Walmart and marketplace Wayfair have both been investing in content creation to drive customer relationships and online sales. This has included creating short-form episodic romantic comedies while working with celebrities and influencers who share their favorite products to try out.
Speaking during ADWEEK’s Commerceweek event, Sarah Henry, vice president and head of content, influencer, and commerce for Walmart, and Alex Frias, head of integrated marketing at Wayfair, discussed how they were both using creators and influencers, as well as streaming platforms, to encourage product discovery.
And while physical retail is important to both (Wayfair plans to open its first store in Chicago in May), a focus on online presence is an obvious route to direct audiences to buy.
“We create these moments of product discovery based on what people know they need and what people may not have known they needed, but then can’t stop thinking about the need to have it right then,” explained Henry.
“For us, that includes enabling and empowering people to think about not just the Walmart that they travel to—a lot of people think about the Walmart that maybe is nearest in proximity to them that they get in their car and go and drive to,” she continued. “But they don’t necessarily think about the fact that the closest Walmart to them is actually in their pocket.”
Walmart works with tens of thousands of creators, Henry claimed, adding that follower size was no longer the most important aspect of partnerships, but more about trust factor and how those creators could help the business get its story out.
The retail giant cited GWI data that around 200 million American consumers are spending 2.5 hours per day on social media, and many are watching short clips of romantic comedies, which proved popular for family and friends to watch together during holidays.
