Helping communities & associates live better

“My partnership with BPI over the years has re-defined how we think about public affairs marketing. Our data-driven and surgical approach put an ROI on reputation.”

- Aaron Bernstein, Walmart, Senior Director 2 Insights & Advocacy

Walmart has led perhaps the most successful reputation reboot of the 21st century. Today, without losing focus on innovation and their core business, Walmart has become a valued partner to virtually every major effort to rebuild and strengthen the country. This success required both major action and willingness to communicate.

For the past 9 years, Walmart has partnered with BPI to build a cutting-edge, data-driven corporate affairs program to tell this story. Starting by identifying high priority targets – whether they’re political and business elites or persuadable shoppers – we’ve worked to not only successfully shift opinions about the Fortune 1 company, but also increase sales online and in-store as a direct result of corporate reputation advertising.

The complex program reaches these priority targets regularly, sharing Walmart’s work to grow and support U.S. manufacturers and local suppliers, while also investing billions of dollars in their associates by providing better wages and access to education.

Furthermore, as our nation had to come together like never before to address COVID-19, Walmart had the scale and resources to keep meaningful parts of the country safe, healthy, and running. While Walmart worked to keep stores open safely with associates working in-person, deliver groceries at record rates, and scale curbside pick-up operations, we worked to communicate their commitment to safety and keeping the country open.

To create a hyper-efficient and audience-first campaign, while ensuring our message continues to resonate with elites, we’ve implemented our full suite of ad technology products. We used Orbit to develop custom audiences consisting of the most influential and powerful policy elites, business elites and ESG investors. We communicate with them directly through paid advertising and then use our proprietary survey tool, Vantage, to track shifts in opinions and brand favorability, allowing us to optimize media mix and creative to create the most impactful communications environment.