Sears reaches out to neglected Zombie-American demographic

Retailer Sears is focusing a new e-commerce campaign on the underserved needs of the growing Zombie-American community. Site is available in English or Zombian.

sears.com/Zombies

(thanks, Seth Rosner!)

• [Dave]

  Now Sears customer service has a place to shop!

• [penguinchris]

  I do think the Craftsman tools are quite good for the most part, and a decent percentage of my tools are from there. Anything else in Sears, though, is either awful (especially the clothes) or is the same thing you can get somewhere else for cheaper. Glad to hear the salespeople are good – I’m sure the type of customer who goes to Sears a lot appreciates that. So it’s homeowners who like nice tools and old people. Kind of sad, but not a bad niche business-wise.

  Does make it bizarre to do something like this, not that zombies have been cutting-edge for *years* ;)

• [Anonymous]

  Yeah, this is more an indication that zombies are over than that Sears is cool.

• [mdh]

  Not bad.

• [Chentzilla]

  I believe the language is also known as zamgrh!

• [Anonymous]

  The language on the Sears site reminds me of the Urban Dead MMO zombie language translator.

  Oddly enough, the word “Banana” is the same in English as it is in Zombish. Made for some bizarre in-game usage.

  Links:
  http://www.siddhant.name/games/ud/english2zombie.html

  http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Zombie_Speech_Translators

• [Anonymous]

  AWESOME.

• [MrsBug]

  People seem to have such mixed reviews about Sears but our experience there has never been anything less than pleasant and helpful. It’s nice to see such a stodgy old lady have some fun, a la Target or something – playing away from their usual demographic of homeowners and tool buyers.

  • [Donald Petersen]

    playing away from their usual demographic of homeowners and tool buyers.

    Fiddlesticks! As a homeowner and tool buyer, I tell you that this plays right into my wheelhouse. After all, nothing severs undead head from grasping, shuffling zombie body like a Craftsman® brand Model 35098 20″ chain saw.

    You hipster renters out there may think you invented the Zombie Apocalypse, but we homeowners and tool buyers have always been your first (and last) line of defense against the Post-Living Menace.

    Thank your dad with a Sears® gift card if you manage to survive the next Rise of the Dead.

• [Anonymous]

  gotta be some people out there that would believe this site is in arabic

• [Cazmonster]

  I fully approve of this campaign! Go Sears

• [Anonymous]

  Great now Zombies will be armed with top notch Craftsman power tools! Thanks Sears!

• [Nash Rambler]

  My god! Sears has a sense of humor! This ranks up there with atom-splitting in terms of discovery.

• [Anonymous]

  Uh. I recognize this language, sadly. And I say sadly, because that means that Sears may have stolen something a group of people created with their own time, and not given them credit for it. Or even a reference.

  This looks a LOT like “Zamgrh” or one of its sister languages, an in-game created language made by players of the free online browser game Urban Dead that allows undead players to talk to one another, since zombies can’t speak proper english in-game. You can read about the languages and their translation matrixes here: http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Zombie_Speech_Translators

  I really hope I’m wrong, but a lot of stuff on the Sear’s site looks like they just ran their stuff through one of the zombie translators. Which is cool and all, but how about giving credit to the source, if thats the case?

• [tad604]

  Irony?

  • [Anonymous]

    Ha! Very ironic indeed.

• [Anonymous]

  I’m as shocked as anyone. I work at sears and I didn’t know we were doing this!

  @MrsBug #4 — I give each customer my absolute best, and I work in electronics where customers can easily get lost with today’s home theater complexities (particularly older customers). Obviously sears as a certain standard they hold their associates to, but it certainly helps that I, and most of my co-workers around the store, hold themselves to an even higher standard. More than once I’ve taken the time to draw pictures on receipt paper or demo a product in depth or even ask them to bring in something they have trouble using, because it’s fun for me and the customer really appreciates it.

  I care more that the customer gets what they want and need than my own paycheck. I once talked a customer into downgrading their TV once he indicated that it might affect his family’s ability to pay that month’s rent (I wish I was kidding, his wife helped me talk him out of it).

  I obviously can’t blanket my personal views on customer service to the entire company, but know that there are indeed happy mutants that care about their fellow person. I have met associates that actually lie to their customer or narrow their information-output to ‘hone in’ on the sale.

• [Anonymous]

  I agree. All English ads should give credit to Caesar and Rome.

• [Anonymous]

  MMrrr…Brraiiinnss…. I mean… I applaud a mature brand like Sears for trying something like this… and the videos are quite funny. I wrote a full review of the campaign here: http://www.headstandmedia.com/sears-goes-zombie/

• [mellowknees]

  so funny and SO UNEXPECTED from Sears of all places. WOW!