Giving Gen-A the spotlight

With last year’s back-to-school spending reaching new heights, Walmart was ready to make a splash in the coveted ‘kids fashion’ category.

When it comes to back-to-school, Walmart has always been well-known for the basics: pencils, folders, loose-leaf paper. But when it comes to fashion, Walmart hasn’t always been the first stop for parents looking to send their kids off to school feeling confident.

With Generation Alpha taking over as Gen-Z aged out, it was time to let a new generation take the mic. Because this generation has OPINIONS—and a vocabulary of slang you’ve never heard before. So, to help parents ace the style assignment and decode what trends have rizz and what’s straight up sus, Walmart created a runway show spectacular—explained, styled, and walked by Gen-A themselves.

First, we teased the release of something big

To hype the show, we teamed up Gen-A style icon Taylen Biggs, known for her interviews with celebrities and her fashion-forward style, with Kat Stickler, known on TikTok and Instagram as a mom and comedienne, to hook millennial parents.

Then we dropped the main event

High-impact media placements on YouTube, TikTok, Roku, & Meta drove to a 5-minute, long-form runway show extravaganza on Walmart.com featuring over 100+ head-to-toe Walmart “lewks.” The runway show styled top Walmart fashion brands with all the tech and gear that kids need for their best school year ever.

Social-first = Culture-driven

With the "Millennial vs. Gen-A Challenge" dominating social media, kids were already teaching their parents new lingo, like what's "sus" and what’s "sigma." So we amplified Gen-A’s thoughts and trends with Walmart’s best fashion, tech, and supplies. Using a two-phased social media blitz, Phase 1 featured social cutdowns of the most epic moments and styles, all driving to shop on Walmart.com or right from the ads themselves.

Sustaining our strut

In Phase 2, we released exclusive behind-the-scenes content, including interviews with our Gen-A models in 1:1 convos with Kat Stickler about everything from the styles they chose to the supplies they love.

A co-viewing experience for parents and kids, School Style Decoded popped off across the internet & beyond — and slayyyed.

Basically, we ate

School Style Decoded demonstrated the legitimacy of social media trends in mass media work. We were successful because WE weren't the ones talking — Gen-A spoke on our behalf, expanding Walmart's influence and breaking a long-held misperception that Walmart fashion was not up to the standards of discerning kids and parent shoppers.