2017 Winners

Walmart is a top destination for toys. The retailer carries one of the largest assortments of toys (all age groups, must-haves, newest to the market, perennial favourites and classics). Faced with increased competition from other retailers, Walmart needed a point of distinction to position itself as the number-one toy destination during the holidays.

Enter Toy Testers: a unique program that identified the hottest toys for the season by working with the real experts – actual kids. The main objective was to drive in-store traffic and online traffic to Walmart.ca.

Working with Traffik, the retailer invited 500 families, kids and their parents to an event to test more than 100 unreleased toys. To ensure the toys met the high-standards of both kids and parents, the team asked reviewers to rate the toys on educational value, age appropriateness, ease of use, how the child reacted to the toy and even if mom and dad liked it, culminating into Walmart’s Top 20 Toys list.

To establish Walmart as a one-stop shop for the holidays, the team created a list that mom and dad knew was vetted by the experts, giving them peace of mind that their toy gift would be a hit.

In the weeks leading up to the peak purchase period, media is saturated with must-have toys. Over a six-month period, the brand and agency implemented an integrated program that provided relevant and useful content to help parents with their holiday buying.

Initial connections were made online through Toy Testers event registration and social media posts, followed by the event itself. Anchored by two 30-minute network specials on YTV (which were created at the Toy Testers event), the program continued in-store, in-flyer, through Walmart’s toy digest and in Walmart’s Live Better magazine – as well as through digital and broadcast promotional spots, Top 20 Toy profile spots, a toy hub on Walmart.ca, 40 unboxing videos, a Big Fun Movie sponsorship integration, as well as digital and blog posts on YTV and Yummy Mommy Club network.

The program was a success, with a strong click through rate delivering almost 250,000 visits (25% above the objective) to the Walmart.ca landing page where multiple pieces of campaign content was hosted. Approx. 14% of visitors engaged with the content suite developed throughout this program (above the 10% benchmark), and there was more than 1 million viewers across both 30-minute network specials (33% above the objective), delivering total impressions of over 50 million (66% above the objective).