Friday Blog Roundup: Security Spying, Self-Help and Emergency Contraception

SELF-HELP AT WAL-MART
This week Wal-Mart introduced a corporate initiative which will motivate staff to be more physically fit and more environmentally conscious. It sounds to us like Wal-Mart’s pushing its corporate problems on to its Associates, but we’ll let someone with firsthand experience talk about that:

Self-help at the Wal-Mart [Behind the Counter]

I was in line at the Starbucks earlier this week and saw the picture from this article and the word WAL-MART in the headline but never got to a library to look it up.

Three words: Public. Relations. Stunt.

This gem of a program has got ultimately got nothing to do with the environment and EVERYTHING to do with cash.

BIG BOX MEETS BIG BROTHER
Wal-Mart’s PR department exploded this week when a story in the Wall Street Journal probed deeper into their corporate surveillance practices. Wal-Mart first defended its practices, then apologized for them and eventually vowed to change. Not surprisingly, no one bought any of it.

Wal-Mart is Watching [Consumerist]

According to the recently fired employee who intercepted calls and text messages from a New York Times reporter (and a few other Walmart employees) Walmart’s surveillance tactics include:

• Scanning employee’s email
• Logging all employee key strokes
• Using monitoring software to detect vendors viewing pornography on their computers
• Using monitoring software to read employee personal email such as hotmail or gmail
• Investigating outspoken critics of Walmart
• Sending “a long-haired employee wearing a wireless microphone to Up Against the Wal’s Fayetteville, Ark., gathering, and eavesdropped from nearby.”
• Locating Nu Wexler’s vacation photos, “Wal-Mart has far bigger concerns than my vacation photos,” said Mr. Wexler, after being informed of the surveillance. “Someone would have had to dig for quite a while to find that link.”

Wal-Mart Is Reading This Post [Wall Street Journal Blog Roll]

A company, person or institution that puts defending its image and stifling criticism first and foremost – rather than addressing underlying problems that can lead to such a soiled image — puts itself at risk of seeming paranoid, thus further hurting its profile.

Inside the Bat Cave: Paranoid Wal-Mart’s spying scheme [Blogging Stocks]

Being the world’s biggest retailer doesn’t make Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. feel secure. No sir! According to the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart spies on reporters, critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

And you thought the US was paranoid with its Patriot Act that lets librarians track your web searches and its Total Information Awareness system. Wal-Mart makes Hewlett Packard Company, Inc.—which spied on its board of directors to detect press leaks—look like a chump!

Wal-Mart: The Down Side Of Paranoia [24/7 Wall Street]

Hiring consultants and spying on them would seem to be counter-productive.

What has come to light is that the company has a Threat Research and Analysis Group that tracks employee communications and other activities.

While it is understandable that a company might want to protect itself against devious employees and outside groups that may want to harm the company’s image, nothing would seem to do more damage to that image than the revelation that it has a network of spies on the payroll.

Satire: Reach And Frequency As Defined By Wal-Mart [Online Media Daily]

In yet another carreer-ending admission of failure, President Bush has once again overhauled the intelligence apparatus of his administration, replacing the CIA and the FBI with the Wal-Mart internal security team. In its first 48 hours as the nation’s spymasters, Wal-Mart arrested Osama Bin Laden, found weapons of mass destruction hidden under the Green Zone in Baghdad, discovered Amelia Earhart living under an alias in New Zealand, filed a 200-page report revealing that North Korea’s nuclear facilities can’t produce enough radioactive material to illuminate a single watch dial, and unearthed Jimmy Hoffa’s body from the end zone of Giants Stadium.

A EULOGY FOR PAIDCRITICS.COM
What, another Wal-Mart PR scheme didn’t work?

PaidCritics somewhat bows out [PR Week]

There is likely never any good time to shutter one’s Web site, but given Wal-Mart’s spate of bad news recently, it might have been worthwhile to close shop a month from now. The declaration of victory might have been less contested then.

Has Working Families for Wal-Mart Gone the Way of the Dodo? [Writing on the Wal]

Mark Rose has yet another interview with Richard Edelman at PR Blog News. We know Paid Critics is dead. Is their faux sponsor extinct too? Come on Mike, give us the scoop.

WAL-MART PUTS IT IN WRITING
After having Emergency Contraception at its in-store pharmacies for nearly six months, Wal-Mart finally agreed to dispense it. The company now formally requires pharmacies to fill prescriptions for “Plan B” without giving customers a hard time (read: refusal or a lecture) about it. Individual pharmacists still have the option to decline filling such a prescription, but they must find someone else on duty to do it. While the rule is now on the books, only time will tell if it’s actually enforced.

Wal-Mart changes corporate birth control policy: EC will be dispensed without discrimination or delay [Planned Parenthood’s “Save Roe!"]

Big news from the biggest retailer in the country. Wal-Mart has signed onto Planned Parenthood’s pharmacy policy on emergency contraception (EC), also known as the “morning-after pill.” This means that Wal-Mart will provide EC in-store, without delay. Over the past few years, Wal-Mart pharmacies have been notorious for not stocking EC or refusing to provide it even when it was in stock. And without a clear corporate policy, the pharmacies were not held accountable.

Planned Parenthood’s Erin Kiernon said, “We think it’s an incredibly significant change. Wal-Mart’s policies are now enforceable since they now exist in writing. Our hope is that they’ll actually enforce them.”

A women-friendly Wal-Mart? [Salon.com]

Here’s some good news: Planned Parenthood reports that Wal-Mart has just joined the ranks of Eckerd, CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens in being considered “women friendly.” Yes, you heard that right.

Planned Parenthood had documented numerous instances in which women, sent to check up on emergency contraception availability at Wal-Mart, had been denied medication by Wal-Mart pharmacists. (The pharmacists also refused to find someone else in the store to fill the prescription.) Also, despite its agreement to dispense emergency contraception, Wal-Mart lacked a written policy on the subject. Planned Parenthood confronted Wal-Mart on the issue and sent it a survey—basically a list of statements related to emergency contraception that Wal-Mart could answer either yes or no to—in an attempt to force Wal-Mart to put something into writing. And apparently Planned Parenthood’s attempts succeeded: Not only has WalMart put its policies down on paper, but it has promised to require that “conscientious objectors”—that is, employees with personal objections toward emergency contraception—must find someone else in the store who can provide the pills.

ABOUT FACE
Maybe it’s the spring weather, but Wal-Mart’s been particularly vain this week, with new clothes, new store designs and a new outlook on life.

The Wal-Mart Weekly: examining Wal-Mart’s public image [Blogging Stocks]

While Target was successful building its image of a style-conscious retailer with the discount edge, Wal-Mart’s attempt to do the same thing was floundering in the latter half of 2006. There are many parts to this: Wal-Mart’s marketing was non-existent outside its “always low prices” tagline (and still is), many of its stores weren’t changing to reflect the “higher-end Wal-Mart” image that the company was trying to project to the marketplace and the flurry of negative PR continued and even intensified at the end of last year.

Wal-Mart: Off with Their Smocks! [BusinessWeek]

Over the coming weeks, Wal-Mart will make the first change in four decades to its employee dress code at 3,400 stores nationwide. Out are the company’s familiar blue smocks with the smiley-face logo. In are dark blue shirts and khaki pants. Just don’t call the new look a “uniform.” In a memo sent to managers and reviewed by BusinessWeek, the company states, “The new dress code is not a ‘uniform.’”

Looks Matter: Wal-Mart Hopes Facelift Boosts Profits [Women’s Wear Daily]