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“Smart Choices” is a food labeling program backed by industry heavyweights like Kellogg, Con-Agra, and (of course) Walmart.  The idea behind it is obvious: if you flag “healthy” foods with a uniform labeling system, consumers can easily identify them and make better snap decisions. 

Unfortunately, the program’s health criteria are riddled with holes.  Many products are rewarded merely for limiting sugar, fat, and salt, allowing questionable items like fudgcicles, microwave popcorn, and Lunchables to qualify for the “healthy” label.

When it comes to evaluating breakfast cereals, Smart Choices really puts on the kid gloves. Basically, a cereal containing a single encouraged nutrient and up to 12 grams of added sugar per serving earns the coveted green ribbon of health.  This has allowed ridiculously unhealthy products like Froot Loops and marshmallow-laden Lucky Charms to sport the Smart Choices Label. 

There is no news as to how extensively Walmart plans to implement the program, but the company remains on the Smart Choices Roundtable.  We can only encourage Walmart to do the right thing by using its clout to make Smart Choices a little less… dumb.

For more, check out the New York Times article: For Your Health, Froot Loops

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It’s not often to read in the business press these days that Wal-Mart is having trouble growing. But Dow Jones reports today that Wal-Mart’s plan to conquer the grocery market has hit a roadblock.

Not only has Wal-Mart decided to put the brakes on its “marketside” experiment (as well as desperately rebranding it), but its “ambitious” relaunch of the Great Value brand has been delayed. The company was intending rerelease thousands of its in-house label products, and give them significantly increased shelf space - in order to better cater to cash-strapped customers. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been able to make that happen.

There are a couple points we might add.

That’s not the only reason Wal-Mart is having trouble growing its grocery share. Despite the recession and desperate local politicians, communities are still saying no to Wal-Mart. Over the past two years we’ve seen record breaking numbers of Wal-Mart projects fail. In the past two weeks the Wal-Mart Watch community has sent over 25,000 letters to the city council members of New York, Chicago and LA - urging them to stand to Wal-Mart. The bottom line is that Wal-Mart hasn’t done much to make it more palatable to the communities that have opposed it.

And along the same lines, it seems that a wholesale focus on cheaper, in-house products isn’t compatible with Wal-Mart’s push to retain higher income shoppers and move into higher income neighborhoods. On one hand, Wal-Mart is spending millions to make shoppers feel more comfortable with its produce and meat, and on the other hand its making a rush for the bottom with cheaper, Wal-Mart brand groceries.

As always, Wal-Mart wants to be all things to all people. It’s doubtful that it will work.

Wal-Mart Sees Delays In Its Plan To Become Bigger Grocer [Dow Jones via Wall Street Journal]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., long a retail titan, is finding that being a grocery titan is a bit bumpier.

The retailer, which has been sailing through the recession - relatively speaking - on the appeal of its low-cost offerings, has fallen behind on the re-launch of its private-label Great Value brand and has put the brakes on any expansion for its small grocery stores.

The ambitious Great Value launch, which involves several thousand items, “has met with some delay,” Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said.

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The New York Times takes an interesting look at a widespread move by companies to adopt a warmer, brighter and “fuzzier” logo in attempts to rebrand themselves:

Wal-Mart’s old mark was navy blue, but it felt Red State. The company has been under heavy attack for its labor and environmental practices, bruising its brand in bluer quarters.

A major image overhaul is under way, and a new logo is starting to appear across the country. The military-style Wal-Mart star has given way to a yellow twinkle that punctuates a new message: this is a company that cares, with fast and friendly service and a fresh, innovative outlook, according to Linda Blakley, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.

Ms. Williams, of Wharton, said the softer Wal-Mart logo serves another purpose: to stand apart from the bright reds and louder typography of its main competitors, Kmart and Target. While Target’s design says bold and cutting-edge, Wal-Mart’s sends a signal that it is approachable and sincere, she said.

But what jumps out the most are the dead-on similarities between Wal-Mart’s and Kraft’s logo. Did they hire the same design consultants or what?

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The recession may be driving a few more people into Wal-Mart stores, but it isn’t changing the age old fact that a lot of people don’t actually like shopping there.

On Friday we found an online poll of marketing professionals expressing very negative views about Wal-Mart. Today Consumer Reports says that its new survey shows Wal-Mart at the bottom of a long list of food retailers when graded by consumers on overall shopping experience.

The survey (who’s results don’t appear to have been fully released yet) asked 32,599 respondents to “supermarkets, supercenters, or warehouse clubs in the past year.”

Wegman’s and Trader Joe’s came in at the top of the class, while Wal-Mart suffered low marks for “service and perishables.” Says Reuters: “The No. 1 gripe from shoppers was the lack of open checkout lanes. Wal-Mart was the worst offender: Half of the respondents who shopped there complained about not having enough open lanes.”

There’s no doubt that Wal-Mart size and price position has helped it profit off the recession, but have no doubt: Wal-Mart still has problems.

Shoppers prefer smaller grocers over Wal-Mart: poll [Reuters]:

Wegmans and Trader Joe’s draw top marks from shoppers while Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the largest U.S. grocery retailer, is near the bottom in a new survey, Consumer Reports said on Monday.

The rankings come at a key time for grocers, as cash-strapped consumers have been skipping trips to restaurants and buying groceries as they try to cook less expensive meals.

Besides privately held Wegmans and Trader Joe’s, other chains that received high marks were Publix Super Markets Inc, Raley’s, Ruddick Corp’s Harris Teeter, Fareway, Costco Wholesale Corp, Whole Foods Market, Market Basket, WinCo Foods, and Stater Bros, according to Consumer Reports.

Consumer satisfaction improved since the magazine’s last supermarket survey in 2005, with service, checkout speed and quality of store brands, baked goods, and produce all scoring better this year.

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Just two days ago, Wal-Mart exec Bill Simon was bragging (again) that Wal-Mart is now appealing to more high-income shoppers. But a new survey shows otherwise.

Tim Manners posts on his blog the results of a recent Cool News Wal-Mart survey. According to BusinessWeek, the readers of Manners’ blog are “approximately 3,000 senior-level, client-side executives in Fortune 1000 marketing departments and top management of major advertising, promotion, direct and marketing-services agencies.” The survey participants are marketing professionals, over 50% of which claim to have over 15 years in the business.

So not only are these high-income shoppers, but the ones who make and sell Wal-Mart products.

The results make it look like the recession hasn’t changed anything. About a third “never” shop at Wal-Mart, and half “sporadically” shop there. Almost none regularly shop at Wal-Mart. The recession has seemed to have little affect on their shopping habits, or opinions of the company.

It’s what we’ve always said at Wal-Mart Watch. Recession or no recession, Wal-Mart is not winning over the key demographics it needs to continue its rapid pace of growth. People aren’t being fooled: for a large block of the population, the company’s business and labor practices still remain unacceptable.

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Dear Small Business Owner:

If Wal-Mart opens a store near yours, and you need to come up with a strategy to compete, don’t try to copy Wal-Mart by lowering your prices. It certainly won’t help - in fact it might even hurt - according to a new study published by the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. The report finds that a new Wal-Mart has a strong negative effect on an existing retailers’ sales in general, though certain retail formats see more negative effects than others.

Having Wal-Mart as a new neighbor means that—no surprise—grocers and other competing retailers will likely take a sales hit...On average, neighboring grocers’ sales decline by 17 percent when a new Wal-Mart opens.

In fact, the study found that when Wal-Mart comes to town, local mass merchandisers, supermarkets and drug stores all see significant sales declines. Cutting prices only “mitigates” the harm for grocery stores, and doesn’t work at all for mass merchandisers and drug stores. And so perhaps the most important piece of information to come out of the report for any business looking to compete with a Wal-Mart moving into its neighborhood is this - the key is differentiation, not mimicry.

Grocers, in fact, should try to be the opposite of Wal-Mart, the study concludes, by offering more high-end items as well as more private-label, natural, and organic products. Rather than reducing prices overall, grocers should run more sales promotions.

When a Wal-Mart comes to town, retailers “should be scared,” one of the study’s authors, Dartmouth professor Kusum Ailawadi, told the Wall Street Journal’s Independent Street blog. But “it’s no use to blindly cut prices” because “price-sensitive consumers will move to Wal-Mart anyway.”

What You Can Do to Fight Wal-Mart [Wall Street Journal]

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A push to get rid of wilted lettuce and rotten tomatoes is paying off for Wal-Mart, despite a grocery business that continues to score low in customer satisfaction. From Bloomberg:

Wal-Mart plans to advertise its produce in coming months to win over more customers after efforts to tidy displays, buy food locally and automate purchasing, executives said in interviews last month at the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Groceries account for more than 40 percent of sales at Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores and have outpaced the growth of most other products in the past year.

Despite the fact that Wal-Mart has undoubtedly prospered during our country’s economic...ummm...struggles, the perception of the quality being sold there remains low. In fact, on the American Customer Satisfaction Index posted by the University of Michigan, Wal-Mart consistently ranks at the bottom.

Customer ratings on meat and produce have trailed the rest of the store, said Bill Simon, Wal-Mart’s chief operating officer for U.S. stores...In terms of customer satisfaction, Wal-Mart’s grocery business ranked worst in the fourth quarter compared with six major supermarket chains, according to the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index.

What this doesn’t bode well for is Wal-Mart maintaining its market share once the economy turns around. Indeed, Wal-Mart sits at a 68% satisfaction rate, 8 points behind the average supermarket score and over 4 points behind Wal-Mart’s own score from a year ago. If that continues, could an uptick in economic fortunes see shoppers returning to their old grocery shopping habits?

So, are we happy that Wal-Mart is trying to upgrade the quality of its produce? Or perhaps the better question to ask is, should we be concerned about the reasons why Wal-Mart needs to upgrade its produce in the first place? Couldn’t they have tried to avoid sub-standard produce right from the beginning? Beverly Crisp, a shopper interviewed by Bloomberg, was surprised on her most recent shopping trip that Wal-Mart’s grocery aisles weren’t “the mess” they had been previously - if that’s the general consensus among shoppers, Wal-Mart is going to need more than just new broccoli to fix its image.

Wal-Mart’s Push for Fresher Broccoli Boosts Revenue [Bloomberg]

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Wal-Mart and Mike Duke are making no secret that they want to be a player in the discussion over health care reform, and that they want to be viewed as a positive force in health care. For several years, Wal-Mart has been signaling support for large-scale government health care reform. Yesterday the company took its pitch directly to Congress with a full page ad in the highly influential D.C. daily, Roll Call. The ad declares support for health care reform and outlines Wal-Mart’s “health care principles”. Among them are:

Every person in America must have quality, affordable health insurance.

Businesses, individuals and government must share the responsibility for financing and managing the American health care system

It’s the same thing we’ve always said at Wal-Mart Watch. It’s great if Wal-Mart wants to encourage the government to build a better health care system, but it needs to get its own house in order first.

Wal-Mart is the single biggest private employer in the country - with over 1.4 million “associates.” And while it brags that 94% of its workers are insured, only 51.8% are on Wal-Mart’s plan. That means that almost as many workers have found a better plan somewhere else - whether it’s from the government, a spouse, or somewhere else. Those who are on the company plan are forced to live with extremely high deductibles - which is not easy on poverty-level wages.

Given its multi-billion dollar profits and the extravagant wealth of its controlling family, Wal-Mart has the singular ability to lead by example - and truly invest the necessary funds into the health of its workforce. Instead, it has chosen the path of smoke, mirrors and expensive PR.

Click here to see the the full ad from Roll Call. 

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Wal-Mart’s now rather aged fake blog controversy - better known as the “Wal-Marting Across America” public relations fiasco - is back in the news. Sort of.

Earlier this year, the Japanese media, advertising and public relations communities came together to establish an organization (called WOM Japan) that would foster the development of word-of-mouth marketing within the domestic industry. The goal - promote the growth of word-of-mouth marketing in Japan through exchanging insights and case studies, establishing a code of ethics and best practice, and building relationships with related industry bodies domestically and abroad.

Well, they’ve gotten to work on that whole “code of ethics” thing, and tenet number one appears to simply be “don’t do what Wal-Mart did.”

Pointing to a scandal in the US two years ago in which Wal Mart was accused of unethically “incubating” bloggers, he (WOM Japan founding member Shige Ota) said it was important to learn from past mistakes, and from an existing code developed by WOMMA (the US equivalent of WOM Japan). Ota named the three requirements for effective word-of-mouth marketing as being “transparency, authenticity and respect”.

“An agency should not order bloggers to write specific content. This is very negative for the entire industry,” he said.

Transparency, authenticity and respect - pretty much all three were missing from Wal-Mart’s lame attempt to pass off PR hacks as actual “folks” journeying across America and spending their evenings snug in their RV parked in Wal-Mart parking lots. Meanwhile, still no word yet from Japan’s screenwriters guild on whether Wal-Mart was part of the inspiration behind the Godzilla series.

WOM Japan to introduce ethics code for blogger marketing {DigitalMedia]

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Wal-Mart picked a fitting time to settle a major class action lawsuit over racial discrimination against African-Americans.

The blogosphere has been bubbling lately over Wal-Mart’s heavy handed exploitation of Black History Month. Nothing celebrates black culture and history like buying a Coke at Wal-Mart, right?

The Wal-Mart ad team might have gotten a little savvier than they once were, but this month’s Black History push still has the old embarrassing flavors that we’re accustomed to. Most notably - Wal-Mart has decked out its entire myspace page (see pic above) in black history, and it was caught yesterday recycling last year’s stock photography in a black history ad. 

Not that we’re too surprised that Wal-Mart is using every opportunity to peddle its kumbaya PR. The Wal-Mart ad team must have seen a world of possibility in this year’s Black History month. America just elected our first African-American President, with whom Wal-Mart is looking to make a good impression - (not to mention the makeup work it needs to do after telling its employees not to vote for him.) At the same time, Wal-Mart is using the recession to redouble its efforts to crack the urban and African-American markets - most notably Chicago - that have once rejected it.

But has Wal-Mart been a good thing for African-American communities? Wal-Mart has always been owned and operated by white men, and has long history of racial and gender discrimination. It’s real: we see these cases, and hear these stories all the time. Moreover, the company has driven down wages and benefits and pushed untold thousands of local retailers out of business - perpetuating an economic race to the bottom that by any measure hurts America’s lower and middle classes the hardest.

Feminist Musings posts a nice rant:

We can just ignore all of the poor workers of colour that are being underpaid and exploited, as we stroll pass the greeters with huge smiles on our faces.  Don’t stop and think for one moment about the fact that most black owned businesses are small and that Walmart makes a concerted effort to bring about the closure of every single mom and pop business the minute it opens up a new store. Let’s pretend that the opening up of a Walmart does not immediately drive down the price of commercial property, thus making it nearly impossible for small business owners to even sell what is left of their businesses at a reasonable rate. 

Will it pay off for Wal-Mart?

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How does Wal-Mart keep getting away with convincing reporters and environmentalists that it is serious about sustainability? It took Jack Neff, who writes for Advertising Age, to point out the hypocrisy of Wal-Mart¹s environmental policy. Of course, he did it quite subtly but the point is clear.

Neff pointed out in an October 12 piece that a Cincinnati-based executive search firm is circulating a job notice for a “Director - Portfolio Strategy, Private Brands, for Wal-Mart.” Ostensibly, it appears Wal-Mart is ramping up its marketing of its own brands. The position will report to Andy Ruben, who many will remember as the former head of Wal-Mart’s sustainability program.  This is where it gets interesting.

There has been much written about how Wal-Mart is encouraging other companies to make their products more sustainable and promises to promote those that do just that. Much of that was initiated under Ruben’s watch. One might think that if Wal-Mart is serious about such initiatives it would make this a key part of any private label development. Not so. As Neff points out:

the new director position appears more squarely focused on growing sales, market share, cash flow and brand awareness—all of them included in the performance metrics of the job description, while sustainability metrics aren’t.

Once again, Wal-Mart says one thing and does another.  Of course, no one is suggesting that Wal-Mart should not be focused on making money, just that its executives should not lie about their motives.

In Shift, Wal-Mart Puts Focus Back on Private-Label Growth [Advertising Age]

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In case you hadn’t noticed, Wal-Mart has received some criticism for its business practices over the last few years. Condemnations of low wages, discrimination, environmental damage, damage to local economies and sweatshop sourcing have come at Wal-Mart from all angles. At some point, someone at the company realized these attacks might be bad for business.

So the company went on the offensive. Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect, explained to a conference of editorial writers this week that in recent months, Wal-Mart has made a massive effort to improve its image. Whereas the retailer once focused on lowering prices regardless of the cost, attacks on the company’s ethics made Wal-Mart realize the high price of behaving badly.

Fishman is certainly right on this point: after years of criticism, it seems Wal-Mart’s leadership finally recognized the value of a good reputation. Since its revelation, Wal-Mart has worked to highlight not only its low prices but its good deeds too, spending millions to publicize its environmental efforts and charitable giving. A new ad campaign, a new slogan and numerous public appearances by company executives drive home Wal-Mart’s new message: We’re not all bad, really.

Wal-Mart’s work to become a socially responsible company, however, is far from done. The company’s labor problems remain completely unresolved: wages and benefits for hourly workers are still paltry, allegations of union-busting remain rampant, and the company’s discriminatory practices have resulted in dozens of lawsuits in the last year alone. Labor issues are the most expensive to resolve, but a recent study (PDF) shows that shoppers take a company’s labor practices into consideration above all other social responsibility issues. The company cannot and will not succeed with its image overhaul until these issues are addressed.

Even Wal-Mart’s highly-touted environmental campaign has problems. While the company cites reduced packaging and organic cotton among its crowning achievements, Wal-Mart’s massive energy consumption, unsustainable land use, and unethical sourcing practices negate any positive impact the company might have. Poor product quality contributes to environmental problems too, and several recalls over the last year and a half reveal the high price of cutting costs. The company’s relationship with local communities continues to be a problem as well.

Like Mr. Fishman, we are also interested to know the impact of Wal-Mart’s environmental footprint - both good and bad. But any examination of Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts should take into account the company as a whole - with all its problems, from factory to shopping cart - not just the side Wal-Mart wants us to see.

Two say Wal-Mart image on mend [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

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Check Out, we hardly knew ye.

Remember Wal-Mart’s Check Out Blog? The one that the New York Times gushed over back in March? The rowdy band of nine fearless buyers Wal-Mart unleashed to conquer the blogosphere with unfiltered wit and opinion? The birth of Check Out was a time of youthful idealism: finally, a corporate blog where ideas could run free, and highly paid marketers could say what they truly felt. The future looked bright.

But less than a year later, Check Out is dying.

We’ve counted three posts on the site in the last 36 days. The few posts tend to be either on video games or apologies for writing so few posts.

Blogger Susan’s last entry reads:

Just wanted to apologize for being out of touch for the past few months!  Of course I have a reason...I was recently promoted to the Merchandise Manger over the Video Game and PC software categories.  I have been busy learning my new role and feel terrible that I haven’t posted anything as of late.

Russell has also stopped writing, leaving the simple, homespun world of Check Out for the bright lights of more exciting things:

But, let me tell you blogging is hard work.  Anyone that consistently maintains any type of online commentary is to be greatly commended.  It isn’t so much finding time to post, for me.  It isn’t even writer’s block.  The problem is finding a compelling story to tell, one that I think other people would find interesting.

And Tifanie echoes Russell’s sentiment, sadly solidifying Check Out’s ghost town status:

I feel Russell’s pain on the blog front....if you would like to know something specific or have an interest you would like me to expound upon, feel free to make the request; otherwise, you will be subjected to my ramblings.

Most sadly though, sustainability guru Rand Waddoups has been missing in action since mid-July. Perhaps he got moved back to salty snacks and has secluded himself for months, racking his brain to invent the greatest Wal-Mart-exclusive salty snack of all time. (Rand: just let it go, it’s already been done.)

Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to mourn the loss of yet another Wal-Mart social media project. We can only hope another, similarly misguided replacement will come along soon...

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Wal-Mart markets its new “Love, Earth” jewelry line as “fashion jewelry that honors, cherishes and protects our planet.” Targeted at shoppers concerned with the environmental and human rights problems associated with gold mining, shoppers can trace their “Love, Earth” jewelry from “mine to market,” assured that it is sourced “from mines that maintain leading environmental and social standards.”

Just one day after Norway slammed Wal-Mart’s “sustainable” gold supplier for massive environmental damages, the environmental group Global Response has publicly condemned Wal-Mart for its gold greenwashing campaign. While the company makes overtures to environmentalism - using pictures of green fields and butterflies on the “Love, Earth” website - it relies on vague terminology, few enforceable standards and biased monitoring in calling the jewelry line “sustainable.” From Global Response:

Wal-Mart’s criteria look good on paper. They include “Safe disposal and management of waste and hazardous materials ...Protection of ecological functioning, ecosystem services and important biodiversity...Respect for the rights of individuals, indigenous peoples and communities [and] Contribution to the sustainable development of communities affected by operations.” But who is monitoring Newmont’s performance? Newmont and Wal-Mart.

The group goes on to criticize Wal-Mart’s mining partner, the Newmont Mining Corporation, for mining on land owned by the Western Shoshone tribe of Nevada. The Western Shoshone Defense Project has been fighting Newmont for years over the corporation’s environmentally-damaging practices.

Wal-Mart’s other partner in the “Love, Earth” line is Rio Tinto, a mining company recently blacklisted by Norway’s pension fund for its environmental damage in Indonesia. Norway has categorically refused to invest in irresponsible corporations: Wal-Mart itself was dropped from the fund in 2006.

Wal-Mart wants customers to see it as an environmentally-progressive corporation, but the company is trying to do it on the cheap. Rather than improve its sourcing practices or demand change from its suppliers, Wal-Mart has repeatedly focused on marketing instead. This not only fails to protect the environment, it actually tricks shoppers into supporting unsustainable practices.

What you can do: Join Wal-Mart Watch and Global Response in calling on Wal-Mart to stop greenwashing its gold. Click here to write a letter to the retailer, or send a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising. With your help, we can spread the word about Wal-Mart’s greenwashed gold.

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MEXICAN SUPREME COURT SLAMS WAL-MART’S LABOR PRACTICES

Mexico’s Supreme Court rules against Wal-Mart’s labor practices [AlterDestiny]

Mexico’s Supreme Court has been making some really interesting decisions lately. Last week they upheld Mexico City’s law to provide access to abortion. Yesterday, they ruled in favor of a Wal-Mart employee in Mexico who brought a case against the corporation for its practice of providing store coupons in place of a portion of one’s salary.  (English story here, Spanish here). The court likened Wal-Mart’s practice to the old company stores that operated under the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1910), that were subsequently outlawed with the 1917 constitution.

Walmart Slammed by Mexican Court [Politics and Hypocrisy]

Now to be fair, I am far from knowledgeable on the working conditions in Mexico. I do know that they must be bad enough to cause 1000’s of Mexicans to cross our borders yearly in search of a better life.

So knowing that, how bad must Walmart be in Mexico if their Supreme Court is criticizing their labor practices? I’ll give you a hint, an 1890’s dictator and store only salary vouchers are mentioned.

I wonder if they tell their employees how to vote down there as well?

After the jump, Wal-Mart’s new in-store TV network, the company’s outreach to mommy bloggers and why you should love the REALLY free market.

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Several stories were published this week regarding Wal-Mart’s newest way to annoy the already frazzled American shopper - the “Smart-Network.” Set to launch in close to 300 stores by the holiday season and chain-wide by 2010, the in-store TV marketing network will include 27,000 screens and feature everything from time-specific advertisements to a series of ‘welcome screens’ to be displayed at store entrances. Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer of Wal-Mart stores, discussed the new system in a story from Adweek:

“We’ve built a network tailored to the way consumers shop our stores, delivering helpful, custom content closest to the point of decision that helps them shop smarter”

“Smarter” is right: now customers won’t have to make shopping lists, decisions about what products are for them, or even have to open their eyes upon entering a Wal-Mart. All they have to do is listen for the comforting sound of a television screen beckoning them closer and closer to whatever Wal-Mart feels like selling them at that time. The company sank $10 million into R&D for this project, coming off slightly better-than-expected sales numbers for the month of August, and seems to show the company’s faith in the system.

Wal-Mart Smart Net Pushes Point-of-Sale Ads

Trying to reach additional shoppers, Wal-Mart has launched the Wal-Mart Smart Network, which supplies information via in-store TV. The company invested $10 million in the project billed as “shopper-intelligent network at retail.” Powered by Internet Protocol Television, the new net will appear in more than 2,700 stores nationwide.

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Wal-Mart has previously tried to win over college students, Facebook users, “working families,” and RVers in its social media misadventures. Now the company has a new target demographic: mommybloggers.

Maybe it was the toy recalls that made Wal-Mart decide to target mothers. Maybe it was the massive gender discrimination lawsuit filed in 2006. Or maybe it was the retailer’s problems adhering to WIC rules, or harsh treatment of pregnant employees that made the company think, “Huh. Women might not like us a whole lot.”

The newest project entails giving free video cameras to mommybloggers across the country and asking them to discuss how they like to save money. We imagine the conversation will pretty quickly turn to Wal-Mart. And Wal-Mart’s marketing execs undoubtedly hope those free video cameras are enough to keep the bloggers from mentioning Wal-Mart’s abysmal record for discriminating against women...but where would the fun be in that?

Retailer, moms who blog form new coalition [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is venturing further into the social media waters with a coalition of busy moms who blog about how to save money on everyday necessities, vacations, even big-ticket items that may fall outside most shoppers’ budgets. Soon, the company intends to invite customers to share their own money-saving tips in exchange for a chance at winning a year’s worth of groceries. Blogs, or Web logs, are journals that are available on the Web. Some of the 12 moms selected for the project already have begun posting video clips on their Web sites, suggesting ways to trim spending.

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A story out today from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette helps to clear up some of the questions about Wal-Mart’s recent logo change. The article explains that Wal-Mart The Company will continue to use the current, hyphenated form of the logo but that Walmart The Store will use the fancy new non-hyphenated version. As if that weren’t confusing enough, the article explains that the ever popular “squiggly” will remain in the Wal-Mart cheer. Yes, questions of how to spell Wal-Mart’s name will now involve a lengthy existentialist examination.

Exactly why Wal-Mart feels the need to make this distinction - between “the company” and its stores - remains unclear. The company wanted a new look for its stores, but changing every instance of its logo might have proven too complicated. Wal-Mart is, after all, the world’s largest company. But the distinction also plays in to an issue we raised yesterday - Wal-Mart The Company is beginning to distance itself from its stores. The company’s new Marketside shops bear no mention of their Bentonville parent, and perhaps the hypen/no-hypen distinction plays in to that. Does Wal-Mart The Company exist separate from its stores? Can it ever?

‘Walmart’ new, but store’s familiar [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Wal-Mart or Walmart ? That depends, the company says. With the June 30 announcement of its new, nonhyphenated store logo, “Walmart” started showing up in some of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ’s news releases and other statements and has been appearing in its printed advertising and in-store signs since then.

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The Financial Times brings news that the Building Dept. of the City of Mesa, AZ. has posted on its website some of the first photos of Wal-Mart’s new “Marketside” stores. The stores signal a departure for Wal-Mart, as they are significantly smaller than the retailer’s traditional format and designed to compete head-to-head with UK retailer Tesco’s “Fresh and Easy” markets.

Marketside’s small format isn’t the only thing that distinguishes the pilot program from other Wal-Mart stores. Marketsides have completely independent design elements and don’t mention the word “Wal-Mart.” From the Financial Times:

The design includes a natural wood finish around the entrance, and deep-purple awnings - the same colour that will be used on the aprons of the staff, and on its website, http://www.marketplace.com. The Marketside name appears in lower case green lettering, with no reference to its parent company.

As Wal-Mart nears the U.S. saturation point for its traditional stores, the company has been forced to evolve into alternate formats. But Marketside’s distinct branding implies the company is worried customers have had enough not only of Supercenters, but of Wal-Mart itself.

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A few weeks ago - Wal-Mart Watch had an inside source in a Wal-Mart focus group who clued us in to some new ads the company was planning to release. Several stories over the weekend tell us how Wal-Mart is ready to roll out the new series of ads - just in time for the the Democratic and Republican Conventions.

It’s been clear that Wal-Mart is trying to take advantage of the political atmosphere and cast itself as a fixer of America’s economic problems and combat its reputational woes. The company has been pushing the “Wal-Mart as government” theme for a while, and these latest ads are the most direct effort yet. (Of course, Wal-Mart’s ad team probably didn’t intend to roll out the new campaign just a week after the store’s low wages led to the first North American union contract, and while embroiled in a massive electioneering scandal.)

We asked readers on our blog to vote on which one of the new ad themes were the most deceptive. The results were as following:

42% (319 votes) “Some believe that fixing the economy starts in DC, we believe it starts closer to home.”

32% (242 votes) “We started $4 prescription plan; now others are following our lead. We believe a healthier America is a better America”

24% (181 votes) “Most people live pay to paycheck, we help your paycheck go further.”

2% (16 votes) “Wal-Mart saves you money—that’s our economic stimulus plan.”

Wal-Mart to air economy-focused ads [NW Arkansas Morning News]:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday it is launching a series of economy-focused TV ads during the Democratic and Republican national conventions.

The 15-second ads highlight some of the company’s top initiatives, including its $4 prescription drug program, and communicate how supercenter shopping saves on gas.

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