If I was one of those soldiers, I would be more concerned that the 'snow' was a chemical weapon attack.

And the only woman in the ad is a mom back home.

okay....what? "shop at walmart and we will magically make your wishes come true"?

That is beyond terrible.

the idea of this is terrible. I don't think anyone would take this seriously right?
But I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit touched by the 'story' of the ad

Hm, notice the last spoken line: "Because of you, we are all living better." Displayed at the same time Wal-Mart's logo and service mark appears: "Save money. Live better." And "live better" lights up.

This is a common thing in commercials, to tie together a spoken and visual theme, but in this case, it seems like they're drawing a parallel between Wal-Mart's low priced goods, and the sacrifices made by troops in a war.

Why did you wait a year to publish this?

As a veteran and a advocate my first thought was, did wal-mart pay the troops at the (Sag) screen actors guild rate? or just give them walmart shopper discount cards?

Then I got a movie flash-back to a snow storm in the ME desert, where the story line from stigma the movie, desert sceen... around 1:60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhlB9XK9CQA&feature=related

so a sign of the times...no work at a decent rate for the troops still prevails and may get better when it snows in hell.. vr j :)

Troops mostly come from low-income families. Low income families shop at Wal-Mart. If you're against Wal-Mart, you're against low-income families having a place to shop, and therefore you're against the troops. Wal-Mart is on the troops' side because it saves troops' families countless dollars and improves their quality of life. Meanwhile the troops are making the world a better place by defeating Al Queda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. This makes a LOT of sense to me (obviously? I am not being sarcastic). Maybe it's cynical but I think that's just a matter of your perspective, since all advertising employs non-rational emotional gestures like this one.

@ Ryan: I'm feeling a slight insulted by your sensing emotion regarding troops and vets (me) as to think low income is a value arguement. Stigmas aside. Todays warriors know physics, combat trauma medicine applications, geo-logic math systems and do do not play with video games as the UAV's operators require at least a hs degree just to get into the service on our country This is not the RVN era veteran by no means..ergo low-income says low-education and or(IQ)intelligence by assessing your hypothesis. Our passion q, (Pq) vs IQ)says "we do more before 9am than most folks do all day long.

As a moot element why would we shop at a walmart when we have Px's that proudly sell more "American Products, made in USA?"

Todays warriors with just military training walk into top gs or contracting corportation assets at gs 9, to gs 13 jobs..simply because they are valued, educated and trained or V.E.T. and the loyality index is far more predictable than any non-vet counterpart in the hiring structures.

Heres a recent sampling..US is now 25th in college completation where in the late 80's USA was number one. Today stats reflect with 60 % HS youth going to college 30% to a trade enviornment 9 % still undecided and only 1 % take the oaths to defend the rights of free speech...1 % percent volunteer..and then come home and become a civic-engagement volunteer www.missioncontinues.org as one example. But thank you for your comments, I will share it with my vet buddy group as we all need a proper laugh to offset the PTSD and stigmas direction most 60 % educated folkes have about us dummy's. vr/jim

Hailing from Kansas and Iowa in my early years, I never understood the fetish for a snowy Christmas. Snow is a pain in the butt. You have to shovel it off you sidewalks, it makes driving difficult, you have to wear boots everywhere, it causes roofs to collapse, schools & businesses sometimes have to shut down, icy surfaces pose danger of slipping (my grandmother broke her hip TWICE slipping on ice), etc. It's certainly pretty to look at, if you can divorce yourself from the reality of dealing with it several months a year.

For the last several years, I've lived in a non-snowy region, and I don't miss the snow at all. It's just not a special thing to me. It means hassle and danger. I wonder how well these commercials play in the Midwest and Northeast, where snow is more common than, say, Hollywood where they're conceived.

Am I the only one who knows that it is actually not unheard of for it to snow in a desert? I lived in an American desert for about 4 years and we got snow at least once each winter. According to this: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=19545 snow is rare in Baghdad but not as rare in other parts of Iraq. If they were in Afghanistan, on the other hand, I would think snow would be even less surprising, since so much of Afghanistan is in the mountains.

So not only does this say something interesting about Walmart, it also says something interesting about the Americans at home who are watching it: namely, they don't know what the hell it's like over there. (And I shouldn't exempt myself; I had to Google to see if it snows in Iraq and to see how much of Afghanistan is mountainous).

@Jim White, I definitely mean no offense and you sound like a great guy. I'm all for people having more options, including low-cost options like those found at Wal-Mart. I know what you mean about value - I buy very little at Wal-Mart - but I think Wal-Mart can be proud of their qualities and they can and should advertise them to their market.

I think that because it's an emotional kind of commercial, it automatically will NOT resonate with anyone who already has antipathy towards Wal-Mart. I think that includes many readers of this blog. But for people who like Wal-Mart and who support the troops, we appreciate that both serve the same Americans whether or not their family members are serving abroad, and we get a non-rational emotional pleasure watching this commercial.

My spouse is deployed to Afghanistan right now (where it snows regularly, by the way), so I should probably admit that biases my view of advertisements that use military-related imagery.

This commercial doesn't bother me any more/less than other commercials of the same type, and less than a different one that I've seen recently. There is a Kay Jeweler's commercial floating around this year where a deployed service-member sends his wife a diamond necklace. The Kay's one bothers me more because they ARE hocking their goods based upon the emotional sentiment one associates with military service-members, it feels somewhat exploitative almost. I do know other milspouses who disagree with me and like the ad (it worked for them, apparently)... but something about it irks me.

The Walmart one bothers me less because it feels like more of an acknowledgement or "thank you" and shows a kind, selfless act.