The retail giant attempted to enter into the youth culture via cyberspace by creating a social network similar to MySpace. Unfortunately for Wal-Mart, many of the youth did not seem too impressed with the site, which may have to do with the actors half baked attempts at appearing cool.
(Market Day) […]”Beth’s Backyard Club,” where you find a picture of “Beth” in a strapless prom dress with such cut-line gems as “I’ll school my way by looking hot in my Wal-Mart clothes to school to catch a cute boy’s eye…”
“Some of the kids looked like they were trying to be supercool, but they weren’t at all, and they were just being kind of weird,” said Amy Kandel, 14, of Columbus, Ohio, speaking with Ad Age. “Are these real kids?”
That is something one may be wondering as well, as the actors-posing-as-teens gimmick is not that convincing as one can tell from the photo below.
Although this was a good idea by Wal-Mart, their attempts at avoiding future lawsuits by allowing parents to control page content was probably the biggest turn off, aside from the not-so-hip actors.
The Wal-Mart social network site is no longer up as they have pulled down the web page, although users can take a limited preview of it by visiting http://www.walmart.com/schoolyourway before being redirected towards Wal-Mart’s home page.
