Walmart has spent more than $18 million on tear-jerking ads to fix its infamous reputation
Walmart spent $17.6 million on an ad that aired earlier this year about the retailer's plan to buy $250 billion in American-made or grown products, the New York Times reports. Additionally, the company has spent roughly $650,000 on emotional commericals in the past year highlighting a new worker training program called Walmart Academy.
In recent years, Walmart has been making major efforts to ditch its reputation as an anti-worker company that values profit above all else.
In 2015, Walmart committed to investing $2.7 billion over two years in higher wages, scheduling improvements, and employee training. As people increasingly shop online, improving in-store experiences is crucial to retailers' success. And, Walmart has said that higher pay has improved customer service at stores.
However, there's also more reputation-centric reasons to invest in better customer service and buying American goods.
Spending millions of dollars on advertisements that highlight the retailer's recent investments shows that Walmart realizes convincing customers it is changing is just as important as making the changes.
Here's one of the Walmart Academy ads:
And, here's the $17.6 million Made By America ad:
You can read the New York Times' full story, which goes deep on the impact of Walmart Academy, here.