Andy Cohen’s name might indelibly be associated with the dropping of a certain ball in Times Square, but the busy media personality wants to make sure you don’t drop the ball when it comes to your New Year’s resolutions.
In “Save Your Resolutions,” a new campaign from Walmart created by agency Deutsch LA, Cohen—who co-hosts CNN’s annual New Year’s Eve broadcast with Anderson Cooper when he isn’t overseeing his own media empire—encourages the audience to resist the temptations of Quitters Day. This so-called holiday takes place on the second Friday of January, when freshly made promises at the start of the year tend to be abandoned.
Declaring “New Year’s is kinda my thing,” Cohen acknowledges the challenge of staying committed to resolutions. He watches as meditations get upended by loud texts, family sporting activities lose the love, aspiring artists quickly lose discipline and exercise equipment becomes an expensive clothing rack.
He then expounds on how the retailer’s membership service, Walmart+, can help people achieve their resolution of saving money while saving them from “bailing” on others, such as planning social activities at home, taking road trips and allotting “me time.”
“We knew going into this work that New Year’s resolutions are hard to keep,” David Hartman, vp, creative for Walmart, told Adweek. “When I heard [about Quitters Day], I thought, ‘Yes, obviously, at some point during the middle of January, myself and so many other people are gonna drop out of what seemed like fantastic New Year’s resolutions.’ But we’re hoping with this work and with Andy as a big part of it, we can help our customers save their New Year’s resolutions.”
The campaign launched on Jan. 10 and will run throughout the month on YouTube, TikTok and Pandora, with cross-channel amplification through linear integration, pause ad features and a package buy on Peacock, which airs Cohen’s Bravo network shows. (He produces the Real Housewives franchise, spinoff Vanderpump Rules and late-night talk show Watch What Happens Live.)
As part of that package, Walmart will sponsor “Raising the Bar,” a branded integration, and run a QR code overlay driving viewers to sign up for the service following the season premiere of Vanderpump Rules on Jan. 30. There will be additional promotion on the show’s social channels, including an after-show extension on Facebook.
Cohen will also do press promotion and share organic posts on social created by him and other influencers tapped to promote the service, which is offering $50 in Walmart cash to shoppers who sign up for an annual membership during the month.
‘Putting the brand in the culture‘
On the decision to run a campaign centered on the offbeat holiday, Hartman explained that “finding the right time of year that is most relevant to the customers that we’re trying to reach” was key to the retailer’s marketing strategy, along with finding the right person to deliver their message “in the most relevant and compelling way possible.”
He cited Walmart’s entertainingly raw “Mother of All Savings Memberships” campaign—featuring comedic actors (and famous moms) Stephanie Beatriz, Janelle James, Jenny Slate and rapper Cardi B sharing motherhood hacks—as the inspiration for this year’s campaign. Cohen was “a natural fit,” Hartman added.
“One of the things that we talk about as a marketing organization is this notion of ‘putting the brand in the culture and the culture in the brand,’ and you can see that reflected in the work that we’ve put out in the past year,” said Hartman.
He told Adweek the Mother’s Day and Mean Girls Black Friday campaigns were notable examples, with the latter being released “at the peak cultural zeitgeist of the film,” which has been adapted into a musical version premiering Jan. 12.
“We’re constantly listening to our customer, seeing what’s top of mind for them and finding ways that we can connect with them in ways that are both authentic to the brand and authentic to the benefits of Walmart+ that also will help us stand out in meaningful ways,” he noted.
