Sears Gets Sociable with Back-to-Campus Crowd

Sears has unveiled the social media campaign that will promote its back-to-college sales this season, a package of three integrated Facebook tools grouped under the heading “Campus Ready”.

The tools, available on the Sears main Web site or on Facebook, are intended to help first-time college students and their families prepare for the experience by helping them to identify and then pay for the furniture and furnishings they’ll need for dorm life.

One of the tools, Sears Campus Gift Getter, is a Facebook elaboration of the GiveTogether feature the retailer launched on its main Web site last May. Students can log onto Facebook to register and set up a wish list of items. Friends and family can then register on Facebook, access those wish lists, and select items for purchase and shipment to the student. For big-ticket items, they can use the GiveTogether platform to pool their contribution with other givers and send a larger or more expensive item as a gift.

A Dorm Room Designer tool in the Campus Ready portfolio lets incoming students collaborate with friends and prospective roommates to lay out the basic furnishings of their college room. Users can choose from a range of room shapes and sizes, add doors and windows, and then place the four basic furniture items—bed, dresser, desk and chair—in the room.

With the basic items placed, Facebook users can then access an expandable menu of other Sears furnishings from small appliances and beauty items to clothing and wellness and entertainment products. These product listings open up to show a thumbnail picture of the item, a price, and icons for more information and for adding the item to the user’s room list, wish list or shopping cart. Some items such as selected laptops and mini-fridge appliances can also be dragged into the virtual room and placed.

Sears also features a number of pre-selected suggested packages on the product menu, with names that indicate their target audiences such as “Camera Cool”, “Gamer’s Paradise” and “Fashion Forward”. Items can be purchased through the Facebook app and either ordered for delivery to the dorm room or held for pickup at the nearest Sears store, identified using IP lookup.

TV home makeover guru Ty Pennington is extending his brand involvement with Sears into the Campus Ready campaign by offering tips for optimal dorm room design. Pennington also has a branded set of picks on the Facebook product menu.

Tabs at the top of the Dorm Room Designer take users to the main Sears Web site or let them choose a list of Facebook friends to invite to view their virtual layout. A “Funny Fives” tab does a little upselling by letting students list the “top 5 things I wish I could fit into my dorm room.”

Finally, Sears’ Facebook “Roommate Matchup” tool tries to map the chances that two roommates will get along, or lays out what an individual is looking for in a dorm buddy, with a series of real-life, tongue-in-cheek interactive questions such as “Do you believe in the five-second rule for dropped food?” and “Set the alarm for the time you usually wake up.” Results of the 17-question quiz can be published to the user’s Facebook wall.

“Our Campus Ready program allows Sears to connect directly with students as they plan to go off to college,” Sears CMO Don Hamblen said in a release. “We began by developing the Campus Gift Getter and transitioned into our Roommate Matchup and Dorm Room Designer applications. These applications allow students to get to k now their ne roommates and furnish their dorm room with their collective style in an affordable manner. The combination of these tools will help to prepare students as they enter the next stage of their life.”

On the “Campus Ready” page of the main Sears site, visitors can find interactive photos of sample dorm room packages from “Funky Femme” to “All Around Athlete” and can mouse over specific items to see prices and product details. If they prefer, users can shop by need rather than room, viewing checklists of products for eating, sleeping, studying, etc.

A page of interactive checklists offers non-brand-specific lists of needed or useful items (“2 pillows”, “2 sets of twin sheet sets”). Once items are checked, users can click to “Shop your interactive dorm room” and see pictures and specs of Sears inventory items that fit those descriptions. They can also print the checklists as .pdf files for in-store shopping.

The “Fill My Closet” tab on the Web page offers interactive apparel browsing for young men and juniors, along with dorm-life tips: “Do the math. You need 21 pairs of socks and underwear to go three weeks without doing laundry.”