Highlights From Edelman’s Ethics Podcast

Recently Edelman took on the question of ethics and social media in a podcast. Click here to listen to the podcast. And click here for a run down. Some key quotes and clips:

“We’re being held accountable to standards that may not even exist yet by people who are sort of, are very idealistic of standards that are out there.”

• MediaDaily: WOMMA Puts Edelman On Probation

Following public relations firm Edelman’s acknowledgment that it was behind a series of flogs, or fake blogs, for its client Wal-Mart, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association has placed the agency under a 90-day review. In a statement posted with little fanfare on its Web site last week, WOMMA said it had “determined that the company has breached the WOMMA Ethics Code--a code that Edelman helped write.”

• A Shel of My Former Self: Richard Edelman goes on the record

In the interview, published yesterday, Edelman admitted that his company failed the basic transparency test that applies to all media, not just new media, noting that the failure occurred because “we have people who are insufficiently experienced in this.”

“It’s basically the entire premise of this can be tolled up into those three words: simply telling the truth. Now before I get into any sort of, what the WOMMA code is, and how we’re acting, I want to sort of look at what our guiding principles are as a firm.”

• The Writing on the Wal: Who wants to be Dorothy?

Sock puppet actually strikes me as the perfect term for them, but I mean that in the literal sense of the word. Wal-Mart is literally holding “Working Families” up financially and speaking its words through their mouths. Scratch the surface of Working Families for Wal-Mart and it’s Edelman and Wal-Mart all the way down. Indeed, there is hardly a working family in sight in anything they do. “Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart” would be a better name for them.

“Point one, we made a mistake, we’re sorry and we’re doing things to make sure it never happens again. Absolutely true. We made a mistake.

• Roger L. Simon: Edelman shames the blogosphere

Just as The New York Times (Jason Blair), CBS (Dan Rather) and Reuters (fauxtography) have shamed the mainstream media, the Edelman public relations firm has shamed the blogosphere. According to The Writing on the Wall (quoting Online Media Daily), the PR operation has “fessed up” to creating so-called “flogs” (phony blogs) for promotional purposes. One of them has the name “Working Families for Wal-Mart.”

• BPWrap: For Wal-Mart, PR = Public Revelations

Wal-Mart’s PR counsellors at Edelman created a blog ostensibly authored by a couple traveling across America in their RV and spending nights parked in Wal-Mart parking lots. Edelman wanted to make consumers think that Wal-Mart is a great place to use as the anchor point for a road trip. When it became clear that this was a fake blog, as it quickly did, everyone jumped on Edelman.

• Irregular Times: What PR Should The Edelman Firm Work On Next?

Low standards. Always. That seems to be the new motto that PR firm A&R Edelman was going for when it created out of whole cloth the fake blog WalMartingAcrossAmerica to represent the astroturf organization Working Families for Wal-Mart. You can figure out who Edelman was working for of course. Think hard now.

• Webpronews: Edelman, Karma’s Not Just For Earl Anymore

“In case your irony sniffer isn’t working right. PR flacks are being paid to criticize those that are paid to criticize their clients at a blog called PaidCritics.com. That’s irony so pure it rivals Ivory Soap.”

Posted by Russ Fagaly on Wednesday, November 08, 2006

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