MySears

Vanessa Hudgens will soon be conquering more than just the Disney Channel.

The actress from High School Musical will spend the back-to-school season hawking Sears apparel via just about every medium possible. That's a summer job that will take her from Facebook to MySpace, from Seventeen to CosmoGIRL.

Sears, the retailer that has been feeling the walls closing in as of late, has partnered with a multitude of platforms aimed at teens and tweens. The campaign, whose return-to-school message is "Don't Just Go Back. Arrive," aims to do a little more itself: While the print ads and TV spots will be ever-present throughout the summer, the web is where Sears smells success. In addition to targeting the usual social networks, the company has set up its own site, Arrivelounge.com, where users can invite friends to the site, create their own music videos (to be posted via MySpace and YouTube), and of course, buy all the Sears clothes Vanessa's wearing.

Also mentioned on the site are the addition of a second celebrity spokesperson (another High School Musical star to be voted on by users) and an affiliation with the MTV movie The American Mall, of which Sears is the official retail sponsor. Read: exclusive product-placement rights.

Sears, under hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert, has been criticized in the past for not doing enough marketing support. But this campaign doesn't seem to be cutting corners when it comes to the youth of America.

"Thirteen sites have partnered with Sears to create custom animation, virtual worlds, and social-networking applications aimed at driving the target market to Sears," the company explained in a statement.

Sears seems to be hoping that, like its "Softer Side" campaign of years past, the secret to success lies is courting a new social (networking) group.

Marisa Rindone

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