Walmart is taking its off-to-college marketing campaign into the virtual reality universe with a new immersive shopping experience.
The company has launched Your Dorm Your Way in Walmart Realm. William White, Walmart chief marketing officer, recently characterized Walmart Realm as the next generation of immersive shopping. The Realm introduction follows on Walmart’s update of its Discovered virtual reality initiative on Roblox, launched in 2023 as a community in which members could vote to support favored games, virtual items and experiences. Earlier this year, Walmart enhanced Discovered so visitors could purchase real-world products through the VR entity.
VR tech platform Emperia and content architect Sawhorse worked with Walmart on the development of Realm, and Your Down Your Way is their second collaboration. Emperia noted Your Dorm Your Way lets college students explore and shop five virtual, immersive dorm rooms inspired by social trends. The Walmart Realm website notes it bases its social trend applications on input from Pinterest Predicts.
For the off-to-college season, Realm offers shops curated by influencers including a shop drawing inspiration from Sanrio featuring rainbows, stuffed animal design elements and pink and purple tones.
Emporia pointed out that the Serene Retreat shop encourages dorm residents to create cozy and comfortable living oases, while Royal provides a smart and eclectic look with a preppy twist. With an emphasis on throwback trends, Y2K takes inspiration from the early 2000s with cotton candy and other pink shades contrasted by black and white checks, as well as butterfly and other animal graphics. The LoFi collection references gamers with neon lights and arcade-related styling.
Each dorm room shop offers a mini game, such as Byte-sized Crush in Y2K, and surprises such as virtual transportation inside a doll house in Royal.
On the Emperia website, Justin Breton, Walmart director of brand experiences and strategic partnerships, describes Realm as the next iteration of adaptive retail, adding Walmart is betting on immersive commerce and helping to define the future of online shopping for retail. At launch, in response to a HomePage News inquiry, Walmart described Realm as the next revolution in digital retail. Walmart, at press time, did not respond to a HomePage News inquiry again on the Your Dorm Your Way virtual campaign.
