• by Sarah Mahoney , October 17, 2025

Sam’s Club is introducing “Yes AND,” a new campaign that CMO Chris Curtin says speaks to the heart of the brand’s members: they expect to get everything on their holiday wish list: quality, convenience and unexpected savings. Curtin, who joined the Walmart-owned banner five months ago from Bank of America, tells Marketing Daily about the new effort from Publicis.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marketing Daily: This is your first big campaign since joining Sam’s Club, right?

Chris Curtin: Yes. This is the biggest push from me, from a marketing perspective, so far. We wanted to go during the holidays and have one platform that could span October, November and December. And we wanted the October work to feel like October, November to feel like November, and December, obviously, to feel like the holidays we all know and love. And so we were doing something vertically, and we were doing something horizontally from a creative perspective, which is not easy.

Second, we wanted to build a platform—or a creative chassis—that felt like Sam's Club, getting right to the DNA, so that when associates see it, they say, “Yes. That’s us.”

Marketing Daily: Has it been easy for you to put your finger on that DNA in these early months?

Curtin: I’ve never seen anything like it. I've worked at companies that pride themselves on their culture, but this is almost more like a college environment than a corporate one. That's the type of spirit and a raw, authentic enthusiasm that you feel. We wanted to find a platform that represented that in a culturally cool -- and fun -- way.

Marketing Daily: Retail forecasts say shoppers this year are especially focused on price and value, which are core to the Sam’s Club premise. What’s the mood of your customers right now?

Curtin: Regardless of the economy, that's core to who we are as a brand. One of the reasons we felt like this “Yes AND” creative platform fit us so well is that it shows how we can help you put a smile on your son or daughter’s face, at a great price. People buy products and services from many companies, but Sam’s does it in ways that feel differentiated and distinct, and not just us talking about it. There’s a bias towards positivity, a bias towards optimism, a kind of attitude that is just in the well water.

Marketing Daily: Got a favorite example?

Curtin: Yes. There was this family that had come to our bakery for every graduation cake their family had ever bought. It was their tradition—the whole family would come in to buy it. For one event, they came in, and lo and behold, Theresa—the associate who had sold them all their other cakes—wasn’t working that day. They actually said, “OK, we’ll come back tomorrow when she is working and buy the cake then.” Not many retailers have stories like that.

We’re actually bringing Theresa in—she’ll be in one of the Chris Pratt spots later in the season.

Marketing Daily: Anything special about the media plan?

Curtin: We’ll be in linear TV, specifically in sports. Live sports are still a great vehicle to build an aggregated and national audience. We're also exploring newer distribution platforms and channels, and we’ll be on social media. Our story resonates well in those vertical, scrolling iPhone moments on Instagram, because it's a highly visual campaign. And we’re dabbling with ornaments, pumpkins and Thanksgiving meals for the campaign, so it's not just Chris Pratt.

Marketing Daily: Beyond building sales, are you watching any particular metrics?

Curtin: Brands don't emerge over one day. I view this as an investment against an outcome, which might come in a month, a quarter or a year. From a reputational standpoint, over the course of the next 45 to 60 days, I just want to make sure that we do right by Sam's Club and capture the ways our associates and members are our secret sauce and finally expose Sam's Club to the marketplace in a more comprehensive manner. That includes the pharmaceutical, wellness, fuel and optical markets. I'm not sure that consumers completely associate us with all those.

So with this Chris Pratt campaign, we can begin to expose the breadth and depth of Sam's Club, but in a very manageable, very coherent, and frankly compelling way.