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Kmart Gets Kids to Create
Ads
Amy Johannes
PROMO Magazine
July
24, 2008
Kmart is giving teens a shot at 15 minutes of fame as
part of a back-to-school effort with a contest that asks
them to create a commercial showing off their style.
Kmart built a YouTube contest tied to ABC’s reality show
“High School Musical: Get in the Picture.” In it, teens
film a 30- to 60-second commercial that shows how their
back-to-school style fits in the lives, and how Kmart
helps them achieve it.
The grand prize winner will have his or her commercial
aired during the “High School Musical: Get in the
Picture” finale on Sept. 15. The winner will also
receive a five-day trip to New York City to visit
Kmart’s design center, a $1,000 Kmart gift card and a
Flip Video Ultra camcorder.
Videos can be uploaded to http://www.Kmart.com/youtube
or http://www.Youtube.com/kmart through Aug. 17. A panel
of judges will narrow down the field of entries to 20
and let YouTube users choose their favorite starting
Aug. 26 to Sept. 1. Submissions will be judged on the
use of Kmart merchandise, originality and creativity and
on the suitability of the footage to be shown as a brand
commercial on national TV.
The promotion is the retailer’s latest effort to reach
to teenagers, a new focus for the company, Andrew Stein,
Kmart’s interim chief marketing officer, said. In the
past, Kmart hasn’t had much of a dialogue with the
crowd, he said.
But the online campaign and kitschy merchandise give the
company new reason to talk to teenagers “in a relevant
way,” Stein said.
“We have a reason to invite them into our stores this
year,” he said. “In years past, we didn’t have much
fashion and style. But we’ve upgraded the quality of our
assortment to appeal to teenaged customers.”
Kmart is using in-store signage and its circulars to
promote the show and the contest. In addition, it
partnered with Google on search advertising and is
running an online campaign focusing on teen-targeted
sites.
Draftfcb, Kmart’s ad agency, handles the promotion, MPG
is in charge of the media marketing and Media Contacts
oversees the YouTube work.
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