So, do you know what a “hubster” is ?
Wal-Mart would like everybody to think that it is a community member of the Wal-Mart “The Hub”. The Wal-Mart ad company GSD&M would also like to think of this first and foremost. However as this blog points out, in the US, hubster is often used to talk about someone’s husband ex. “Hubster and me are going to the supermarket”.
The Wal-Mart project of an online community was pretty much ripped to pieces by AdAge in well written and well researched article a few days ago. It certainly does seem that Wal-Mart’s Ad company has not only relinquished any originality in it’s Hub project to MySpace but also dropped all hope of sincerity as well. It just seems as though no real spirit or sincerity stands out except lure kids in under the Wal-Mart banner and hand out a few presents. As the quote below explains the freedom kids always aspire is out of the door with Wal-Mart. There are many other ways to deal with kids security issues that don’t involve stopping them from doing anything!
As the Ad Age article explains :
It’s a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to “express their individuality,” yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users “hubsters” a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool.
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