Ad Age: Floggers Beware

WALMART and EDELMAN. We should inquire a little more about this. It is reasonable to surmise that WalMart has not stopped this practice. Excerpts from item articles include-

EDELMAN REVEALS TWO MORE ‘FLOGS’

• Edelman Reveals Two More Wal-Mart ‘Flogs.’ “Public relations firm Edelman, which last week pledged to be more transparent in its involvement with client-related blogs, Thursday revealed it is behind two more ‘flogs,’ or fake blogs, created on behalf of Wal-Mart. Until the new disclosures, both blogs appeared to have been created and contributed to by independent supporters of the big box retailer, an Edelman client…One blog appears on the home page of Working Families for Wal-Mart, the allegedly grassroots advocacy group formed by Edelman last December, which is “committed to fostering open and honest dialogue...that conveys the positive contributions of Wal-Mart to working families.” The second blog is on WFWM’s subsidiary site Paid Critics.” [Media Daily, 10/20/06]

Wal-Mart Recruits Bloggers for PR Battle

“Under fire for its less-than-employee-friendly policies, among other reasons, Wal-Mart has apparently been rallying a force of blogger loyalists and mercenaries, supplying them with PR ammunition in hopes of beating back the assault, writes the New York Times. Pro-Wal-Mart propaganda produced by public relations firm Edelman has appeared in blogs, often verbatim and without attribution...”

http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2006/03/07/walmart_recruits_bloggers_for_pr_battle/

Online Offensive

“In March 2006 news reports first appearing on blog sites and then in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal revealed that via the Edelman PR firm Wal-Mart was using bloggers to promote their company.”

“With the online “blogosphere” producing criticism from labor unions and portions of the general public, particularly in the wake of films like ‘Wal-Mart: The High cost of Low Price’ and web sites like Wal-Mart Watch, Wal-Mart has engaged in an effort to retaliate.”

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart vs. the Blogosphere

Fallout from the retailer’s “astroturf” blog scandal may end up hitting PR firm Edelman the hardest

“The question in the blogosphere is: How could Edelman have tried to pull something like this over on us?”

SILENT PARTNERS

“In terms of PR strategies, Rubel last year told BusinessWeek that the first job for companies is to monitor the blogs to see what people are saying about them. The next step is to think of damage-control strategies. And when blogs attack, he says companies have to learn to track what blogs are talking about, pinpoint influential bloggers, and figure out how to buttonhole them, privately and publicly (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/2/05, “Blogs Will Change Your Business").

“Yet Edelman and Rubel stayed silent, even as the blogosphere called on them to speak out. Some calls were civil. Blogger Duncan Riley wrote an open letter to Rubel: “Your employer, Edelman, is embroiled in a pretty shady astroturfing scandal. A fake blog promoting Wal-Mart… I’d really like to read your take on this.”

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2006/db20061018_445917.htm

“When engaging the audience in dialogue, credibility and transparency is key, as Rubel noted with his own case study from Edleman PR’s blogging campaign for Wal-Mart.
Rubel told the audience that Edelman ran a blogging war-room for Wal-Mart where they identified the most pro- and anti-Wal-Mart bloggers and engaged them on a daily basis with information.”

http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3606591

Blog Watchers

“In April 2005, Edelman and the “marketing intelligence” firm Intelliseek released a directory of the most influential bloggers and a white paper detailing the importance of blogs to marketing and PR. The directory “profiles bloggers in business, consumer packaged goods, consumer technology, healthcare, and marketing and public relations,” and also “gives advice on blogger behavior and jargon."”

Retrieved from “http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edelman”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edelman

“The war room staff arrives at Wal-Mart’s headquarters, a short drive from a nearby corporate apartment where they live, by 7 every morning. The group works out of an old conference room on the second floor, christened Action Alley, the same name Wal-Mart gives to the wide, circular aisle that runs around its stores.”

http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/2039/9/

WalMart- We pay bloggers to evade and distort information.

All I can say is so far Wal-Mart’s attempt at “rallying a force of blogger loyalists and mercenaries” has been pretty lame. From what I’ve read Bentonville must be recruiting out of retirement/old age homes.

And now for the codger perspective....lol!

Before Reagan became President there was somthing called “Truth in Advertising”. Of corse thats a lost concept with the pro WM crowd.

DAVE SMITH
PROUD UNION IRONWORKER