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Cynthetiq · 06-06-2005, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Wal-Mart's New Realm: Reality TV
By STUART ELLIOTT
LINK
Wal-Mart, seeking additional ways to burnish its tarnished image, is turning to a new realm: reality TV.

For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores is becoming a major sponsor of a reality television show, by signing a branded-entertainment agreement with ABC for "The Scholar," a summer series that begins a six-week run on Monday night. Wal-Mart will be woven into the plots of episodes of the show, which is centered on a competition among 10 high school seniors from across the country for a grand prize of a full college scholarship, valued at $250,000, covering tuition and expenses.

The students will compete in a variety of academic, creative and social tasks, including team challenges, oral exams and defending themselves before a scholarship committee. In one challenge, the five members of the winning team each receive a $2,000 Wal-Mart gift card to outfit their dormitory rooms. And Wal-Mart is underwriting the cost of the scholarships for the nine runners-up, totaling $300,000. (The Broad Foundation in Los Angeles is donating the grand prize.)

There will also be commercials during the show promoting the Wal-Mart and Sam's Club Foundation's long-running program offering scholarships to students in towns where it operates stores and distribution centers. The foundation said yesterday that it would provide more than $6.9 million in scholarships this year to more than 6,700 students through the Sam M. Walton Community Scholarship Program, named after the company's founder.

"We don't usually do sponsorships of any show, no matter what the format is," said Betsy Reithemeyer, executive director of the foundation and vice president for corporate affairs at Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Ark.

But "The Scholar" was "different from anything brought to us before," she added, because it is "a unique way to get out the message on national television that we're supporting education."

Wal-Mart has been under intensifying attack on a variety of issues, ranging from how much it pays its workers to how much merchandise it buys abroad to how much its big stores affect small businesses. The company has been increasing its efforts to counter those critics by taking steps like running issue-oriented advertising campaigns, providing more access to reporters who cover the retail industry and assigning a spokeswoman to be responsible for what is called reputation management.

"In the battleground Wal-Mart is now part of, they're recognizing it's time they speak up for themselves," said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a consulting company in New York. "They have to tell their own story, or otherwise people will tell it for them."

Ms. Liebmann praised Wal-Mart's strategy of getting out the word about its scholarship program through "The Scholar" sponsorship rather than "the more typical 'Aren't we good citizens?' speech."

"That way, you're not hitting people over the head," she said. "You let the program speak for you and you get the good rub off. I call it 'the company we keep' approach."

Wal-Mart and ABC declined to discuss the financial details of the deal, but Wal-Mart said it was paying "well above six figures" for its participation in "The Scholar." Payments by marketers for branded-entertainment deals in reality TV series can range from less than $100,000 to as much as $4 million.

The deal between Wal-Mart and ABC, part of the Walt Disney Company, is indicative of the growing appetite among blue-chip marketers to become intrinsically involved in the content of entertainment programming. Their goal is to counter the growing appetite among television viewers to zip, zap and otherwise avoid traditional commercials that interrupt the shows they want to watch.

"The Scholar" is also an example of a trend among the producers of reality TV shows to play down their previous emphasis on hard-edge competition shows, in arenas like athletics, romance and relationships, in favor of so-called feel-good topics that viewers deem more inspiring - or, at least, less time-wasting.

For example, a kinder, gentler version of a relationship reality series, "Beauty and the Geek," which WB introduced Wednesday, received positive advance reviews and garnered the best ratings in its time period for the network since February among a core audience, women ages 18 to 34.

The feel-good trend was spurred in large part by the success of another ABC reality series, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which has had a branded-entertainment deal with a primary Wal-Mart competitor, Sears, owned by the Sears Holdings Corporation, since it began as a special in December 2003.

"What we like about 'The Scholar' is how it showcases individuals and their efforts to lift themselves up," Ms. Reithemeyer said. "There are 10 kids who overcame difficulties and reached the academic level where they're able to go to college."

She acknowledged that Sears's sponsorship role on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" had "given them enormous visibility in that particular show," adding, "I can see where you would see that" the accolades Sears has enjoyed from its sponsorship led Wal-Mart to pursue a branded-entertainment deal of its own.

But, Ms. Reithemeyer said, "this outreach is because of this unique show being brought to us."

Wal-Mart learned about ABC's efforts to find a sponsor for "The Scholar" from one of its two primary agencies, Bernstein-Rein Advertising in Kansas City, Mo., which shares general-marketing assignments for the retailer with GSD&M in Austin, Tex., part of the Omnicom Group. Bernstein-Rein's duties include national broadcast media buying and creating ads promoting Wal-Mart's prices and convenience, its electronics merchandise and the foundation.

"Over the last six months, we evaluated a lot of proposals," said Joe Myers, vice president and group account director at Bernstein-Rein, "but we didn't want to miss out on this one."

"We felt this one really seemed to do the best job," he added, because "it resonated perfectly with what the foundation wanted to tell the public" and "the 10 students are from every walk of life."

As for Wal-Mart delving more deeply into branded entertainment, "We're going to see how this goes," Mr. Myers said, "and see where we go from here."

The ABC executives responsible for "The Scholar" have high hopes for the series.

"We're not going down the mean-spirited path of reality," said Meredith Momoda, vice president for integrated marketing and promotion at the ABC Television Network unit of ABC in Burbank, Calif., "which is why advertisers are so drawn" to such series.

ABC retained creative control of "The Scholar" as it does with all its reality series, she added, and advertisers are generally kept abreast during production. Ms. Momoda said that the popularity of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" "woke up a lot of people to the possibilities of what integrated marketing can do for you," and "not just for products but to showcase corporate image."

"Sears gets letters from viewers saying, 'We're going to shop at Sears because you do so much good for people,' " Ms. Momoda said.

Imagine how happy Wal-Mart would be to get even a postcard to that effect.

Sponsorship is nothing new. Reality TV is not new.

Someone wrote in the Pimp My Ride thread they wanted MTV to pimp their "ride" and well, here it is...

Personally I think it's a windfall for Wal-mart... ratings will tell the true tale.