Now, instead of a Beneton Colors campaign that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and offend nearly all of Walmart's customers, we get one of the greatest strokes of genius in marketing history. Walmart offered the ten best selling books in America for a pre-publication price of $9.00. That is about $3-$5 below wholesale price.
I would guess that the campaign cost over $70 million in subsidies directly to customers. But the campaign did three things that no standard TV based campaign could ever do:
* (1) It informed the world and Walmart customers that Walmart is a big player in Internet sales, soon to be the biggest;
* (2) It showed Walmart customers that they could pick-up orders placed on the Internet at ubiquitous Walmart and Sam's Club brick-and-mortar stores, an incredible marketing advantage that Walmart has; and lastly
* (3) with sheer luck Walmart got the warm buzz of the Sarah Palin best selling book in its top ten books... reaching a pure loyal Walmart customer segment that can not be reached any other way and certainly not with conventional book sales.
Walmart genius with a little luck.