Whatever people might say about Walmart, the discount retailer understands the power of marketing ? on television and, increasingly, on mobile. Consider its Walmart Rollbacks campaign.

The Bentonville, AR-based company has unleashed a torrent of TV commercials drawing attention to discounts across all merchandise. That effort coincided with a splash on its Web site at www.walmart.com and also through an SMS campaign to consumers on its opted-in database.

The Walmart texts are fairly matter of fact. Here are three sent to this writer this month reproduced in their entirety:

"FREE MSG: Walmart Rollbacks. 17-21oz Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Corn Pops & Apple Jacks now $2.94, was $3.28. Reply HELP for Help;STOP to Cancel"

"FREE MSG: Walmart Rollbacks. 40oz Heinz Ketchup $1.98, was $2.42. Slimfast RTD Chocolate now $5.00, was $5.97. Reply HELP for Help;STOP to Cancel"

"FREE MSG: Walmart Rollbacks. 24pk 12oz cans of Coke, Pepsi & Dr. Pepper for just $5. That?s $.25 per can. Price may vary in OK, WI, HI AK, NY, PR & CT."

These text messages from Walmart?s 63257 common short code were sent almost a week apart. Notice how they push everyday items ? nothing fancy, but household staples such as cereals, ketchup and soft drinks.

Supercentered
Walmart?s goal is obvious: drive traffic to its stores.

The Rollbacks campaign comes just as major retailers are ramping up their spring marketing efforts.

Plus, the government is indicating that the economy is on the mend and consumers are opening wallets, so it?s logical for marketers and retailers to feel more confident about their marketing outreach.

The interesting development with this economic recovery, however slow or tepid it may be, is that Walmart?s last-quarter earnings did not grow at the usual clip while sales were up.

The general consensus is that discounters tend to perform better when the economy slumps since consumers are under pressure to shop for bargains. So when the economy improves, consumers also spend more at department stores, specialty retailers or malls ? at least, that?s the conventional wisdom.

Which means that in good times discounters such as Walmart must run more marketing to convince consumers to shop by price instead of paying more for brand loyalty at other retail chains. 

But Walmart is clever: the retailer did not forget to mention brand with price in its SMS messages. Hence the mention of Heinz Ketchup, Slimfast and Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper in its texts.

Point is, Walmart is using SMS as a tool to drive traffic to stores. It doesn?t cost much and it is timely. The calls to action are simple and related to offers of that week or, in this case, the Rollbacks.

Walmart?s TV, circular, online and mobile Rollback efforts are all coordinated.

SMS is no secret
Why more retailers can?t ape Walmart or do one better is baffling. Tapping the existing customer base to sign up for opted-in SMS alerts is the logical first step. The next is to build this relationship with offers that really matter to the opted-in consumer.

This writer signed up for Walmart SMS offers last November when the program launched. SMS messages seemed to cease after the holidays until the spring effort reactivated SMS to support other media.

That Walmart short code costs only $500 per month to lease ? chicken feed for a retailer whose annual sales last year was $404 billion.

It?s not to say that other retailers aren?t doing what Walmart is with SMS. Victoria?s Secret is even better with its SMS marketing, as has been well-documented by this publication.

SMS can stoke desire, even if it?s not eye-candy material ? in other words, an application.

Retailers sometimes miss the wood for the trees, fussing over elaborate mobile measures when the easiest and the first step should be creating an SMS program backed by a memorable short code and keywords.

What?s good for Walmart should be good for all retail. Walmart is talking to consumers about the thing that matters heavily to them ? price ? in the language they most commonly understand: SMS.

Walmart gets it. The common short code offers the common touch.