Kim Kimble
at Walmart
Forty years of celebrity salon work, an exclusive collection, and a mass retailer. The usual credibility problem runs the other way here — the expertise was never in question. Whether it belonged in the Walmart aisle was.
The impact
- Best-selling SKUs in Walmart's ethnic hair care category, nationwide
- Sold out multiple times
- A line extension plus sister brands, also Walmart exclusive
- 3 beauty awards
The brief
Kim Kimble has spent four decades doing hair at the top of the industry, with a client list that runs through Zendaya, Mary J. Blige and Brandy. The collection launching into Walmart carried all of that behind it.
Which is exactly why it was hard. Beauty editors take celebrity stylists seriously and take mass retail collections less so. The task was to make one legitimize the other, in both directions — the expertise had to survive the aisle, and the aisle had to be worth the expertise.
The work
We put Kim in front of editors one at a time. One-on-one virtual sessions with ten named writers across O, The Oprah Magazine, Allure, InStyle, Refinery29, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The Zoe Report, Teen Vogue, ESSENCE and Harper's Bazaar — each one getting individual hair advice from her rather than a product walkthrough.
The interaction lets Kim build real relationships with these contacts, and positions Walmart as an inclusive beauty retailer supporting Black-owned brands.
Walmart launch strategy, The Woods & CoThat second half mattered as much as the first. The story we sold was not a stylist licensing her name to a supermarket. It was a major retailer making a serious commitment to a Black-owned brand and to textured hair — a story editors wanted to write and Walmart wanted told.
The mailer was built around camera-ready hair rather than product: select pieces from the range, a portable ring light, and a bedazzled pop socket in a luxe box, sent to beauty editors, influencers and Kim's own celebrity clients. Alongside it ran paid creator collaborations built for retail conversion — tutorials, swipe-up stories, Instagram Lives and takeovers that Walmart could run on its own channels — plus organic seeding to macro and micro creators chosen against store footprint, not follower count.
The result
The line became the best-selling set of SKUs in Walmart's ethnic hair care category nationwide, and sold out more than once. That success led Walmart to expand the range and to launch sister brands with Kim, also exclusive to Walmart.
Awards
- Glamour Beauty Awards: Movie Set Mousse and Curl Butter Crème
- ESSENCE Best in Black Beauty: Shine Spray
- POPSUGAR Best of Black Beauty: Tools
Selected coverage
Entertainment Tonight interview, ELLE career feature, Net-a-Porter feature, People, Byrdie and Yahoo launch stories, a seat on the NewBeauty Brain Trust
Ten writers, one at a time.
| Outlet | Desk | Approach | Angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vogue | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Forty years of celebrity salon expertise |
| Allure | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Formulation and range benefits |
| ESSENCE | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Textured hair, Black-owned brand at scale |
| O, The Oprah Magazine | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Accessible expertise |
| InStyle | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Individual hair prescriptions |
| Cosmopolitan | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Camera-ready hair |
| Refinery29 | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Inclusive retail |
| Harper's Bazaar | Beauty | One-on-one briefing · mailer | Prestige technique at mass price |
| Teen Vogue | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Next-generation textured hair care |
| The Zoe Report | Beauty | One-on-one briefing | Stylist-led routine |