Retail Media Satire
Walmart Hires Three Ghosts, All Of Them Ads
Walmart's holiday campaign reworks The Muppet Christmas Carol with ghosts for gifts, deals and fast delivery. I tried to watch it without an ad.
Based on real news: Walmart CMO breaks down retailer's Muppet-fueled holiday campaign (Marketing Dive)
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—Walmart's new holiday campaign reworks "The Muppet Christmas Carol" with three ghosts who visit a miser to show him gift ideas, Black Friday savings and express delivery, making it the first ghost story in which all three spirits are, structurally, ads.
The campaign, "A Who Knew Carol," stars Walton Goggins as Ebenezer Scrooge alongside Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, Marketing Dive reported. One ghost showcases gift ideas, one the savings of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and one last-minute gifting, including Walmart Express Delivery in 30 minutes or less. It runs across TV, streaming, social, podcasts and creator networks through the fourth quarter.
On Sunday I set out to watch one video, any video, without an ad. I budgeted the morning. I chose the long-form Muppet video itself, on the theory that an ad cannot have an ad. Before it played, I was shown an ad. It was the Blanket.
said Imogen Thrale, a fictional media buyer in Chicago.
Readers know the Blanket. It is a weighted blanket from a fictional brand that has followed me across every screen I own since 2023. On Sunday it appeared before the ghost of gift ideas, after the ghost of savings and, in a banner, beside the ghost of last-minute gifting, offering 30-minute delivery of itself. I did not click. I never click. I did, briefly, feel haunted in a good way.
"Technically he watched four ghosts," said Imogen Thrale, a fictional media buyer in Chicago. "Three in the creative and one in the targeting. The fourth ghost is the one that knows your sleep schedule."
A fictional survey of 800 viewers found that 47% could name all three ghosts, 29% could name the blender the second ghost was pointing at, and 24% said the Muppets were "the least commercial thing in the ad," which, a fictional frog later confirmed, was the point.
At press time I had found one video without an ad: nine seconds of my own ceiling, filmed by accident. Halfway through, the Blanket ad began playing on the television behind me. I had not turned the television on.
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Riffing on: Walmart CMO breaks down retailer's Muppet-fueled holiday campaign, Marketing Dive