Hiring the Internet
Internet Marketing news, resources, articles, and buzz.

As the largest private employer in the world and the most popular grocery retailer in the nation, Wal-Mart’s success was nothing to sneeze at. In recent years, however, the corporation hit several snafus due to higher volumes of bad publicity. The makeover of Wal-Mart has been underway for several years as a response to a flurry of bad publicity coming in from all directions. Much of it was based on public criticisms from vendors, labor unions, grassroot groups, and environmental groups (we’ll address this a little later). Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, a 2005 documentary film criticizing the company later earned a 92% “fresh” rating from RottenTomotoes.com (the online meter indicating that it has been highly praised by critics).

How did Wal-Mart respond to all of this? Well, they made some early mistakes. One was producing a response film to the critical documentary titled Why Wal-Mart Works; and Why That Drives Some People C-R-A-Z-Y. The company made a ham-fisted attempt to outwit its critics with an unfamiliar medium, ending up with an obviously one-sided and amateurish (the title speaks for itself) piece of propaganda. The film suggested that the primary motivation for attacks on Wal-Mart was merely jealousy, and it trivialized the concerns and troubles of the groups admonishing the company. Later on, even the film’s director would come to denounce the Wal-Mart sponsored movie in a 2007 interview.

Another blunder of theirs happened in the internet marketing department (perhaps another new medium for them?). Wal-Mart hired the PR juggernaut Edelman to help their worsening image. Yet, in conjunction with its work with Wal-Mart, the firm became notorious for its invention of the “flog,” or fake blog, for nontransparent marketing purposes. The 2006 blog “Walmarting Across America” was ostensibly written by an Average Joe who traveled across the states to speak with customers and employees at different Wal-Mart stores. The end result was a heartwarming record that reaffirmed all the communal good Wal-Mart was doing for America.

Or was it? The thing you must understand about the blogosphere is that it has a very self-aware watchdog mentality, in politics, gossip, business, etc. Fact-checking and whistle-blowing are common activities among bloggers. Soon enough, people caught on and discovered that the writer of the blog was hired by Edelman (Edelman’s stance at first: “allegedly”), and the resulting controversy forced both Wal-Mart and Edelman to defend themselves.

The most ironic piece of this marketing foozle is that the flog was a complete violation of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Code of Ethics, which Edelman helped create! Just to clarify, a company writing its own blog is fine, just as long as readers can plainly see how the author of the blog is associated with the company. A blogger claiming to be an objective third party must own up to any possible personal interest in relation to the product, service, or business being discussed.

So, what has Wal-Mart done well? They have at least understood the general societal attitude towards corporate responsibility for the environment. Online, they have a frequently updated Sustainability page, which documents their efforts in reducing impact on the planet. In 2007, Wal-Mart began issuing reusable shopping bags, and just this month, it began selling organic cotton t-shirts to support farmers transitioning to greener farming methods. Their Sustainability page provides a deluge of positive news (and if you notice, they are selling new products as well).

In March of 2008, Wal-Mart reported a robust first quarter. This is noteworthy especially when one looks at the disappointing profits of other corporations like Target and Nordstrom in the same quarter. Analysts believe that it is the recession helping Wal-Mart. Its reputation for affordable goods and its provision of basic groceries make it a popular one-stop shop for families trying to save.

Just how much Wal-Mart’s online marketing has helped or hurt them remains to be seen. In terms of search result posterity, it seems that the flog controversy remains. It is Edelman, not Wal-Mart, that fumbled for a recovery of lost credibility. A later statement by the firm on the event (“[the flog] was… a publicity stunt aimed at the mainstream media with a new media component”) left bloggers cold. One categorized the “stunt” under “Worst Practices.” Another called it a “puff piece.” The Wikipedia entry for “fake blog” contains a great deal of content associated with Edelman.

So what is the big lesson here? It’s not that Wal-Mart should turn away from the Internet altogether – how else will they have a presence that counters critical blogs such as Wake Up Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Watch, and Hel*Mart? The greater lesson may be for Edelman, which received the brunt of reprobation from bloggers. The Internet has the same rules as traditional marketing. The only difference is that with the great numbers of engaged users and fast technology today, those rules are all the much easier to enforce.