Kmart Designs Web Site To Build Customer Buzz

(MoneyWatch)  Kmart is once again furthering Sears Holding's goals of expanding alternative media marketing, this time by launching a website focusing on design.

The Kmartdesign.com site was first announced on Twitter, said Lisa Schultz, Sears Holdings executive vice president of apparel design, and continues to be linked to the social network via Twitter.com/Kmartdesign. That in turn is linked to a web site that offers tips on apparel and home styles built around videos including a series on actress Jaclyn Smith as she does photo shoots and works with a design team on her Kmart brand, and a collection featuring company designers going about the business of developing new styles. This isn't the first time that Kmart has linked Smith and its designers into a promotion. Recently, the company ran a trunk show in New York where both were present in the chain's Penn Station location extolling the virtue of Kmart fashion and providing advice to customers shopping the store.

The Kmartdesign.com site is advancing the goal of getting the word out about the chain's renewed emphasis on low-priced fashion, one it hopes will resonate in the recession. Kmart design team members shot their featured clips in Chicago, New York, London and Paris, and their travels, as presented, are linked by the theme, "the science behind the design," as Sears Holding's chief home design officer, Theresa Strickland noted, adding:

I sat there watching the first episode and it began with me saying something about how 'Kmart felt old and stagnant.' I cringed at first, but we needed to be honest with ourselves and our customers in order to reinvent our brand stack and product line, starting with a quality first mentality.

Behind Sears Holding's use of web sites and social networks is a desire to refurbish the image of both its namesake and Kmart stores in the minds of customers. The company hopes consumers will accept the new, expanding and revitalized brands it is introducing. Based on individual initiatives that have been launched over the past two years, the company is tying alternative media marketing with both online and store-level selling efforts to provide customers alternative ways of interacting with the company. The approach is particularly important considering the preference the company has expressed for paying down debt over reinvesting in store remodeling and repositioning. As it hasn't upgraded the stores along with, and to better stage, the revitalization of its product assortment, Sears Holding is turning to the Internet to see just how much of a lift it can get from cyber platforms. For that reason, the company didn't immediately publicize the Kmartdesign.com website nor did it promote it in stores to generate a buzz. Said spokesman Tom Aiello:

The idea was to put up these videos and let the customer be the primary conduit to get it out there. Eventually, with the press release this week, we're getting it out to a broader audience. Until now we concentrated on word of mouth and letting the story go from customer to customer. If we want to change the conversation with the customer, it's one thing to go out there and tell our story, it's another thing to put out the basic information and let them encounter it or talk about it. That way, it seems much more credible.