Non-disclosed Wal-Mart blog uncovered by bloggers
Steve Safran October 18th, 2006
We support company blogs - provided the companies disclose they are the ones behind the blogs. But Edelman PR came up with a campaign for Wal-Mart that was less than forthright - WalMarting Across America. It featured a couple’s travels around the country, blogging about how great WalMart is. Hello? Well, bloggers saw right through the charade and soon Edelman PR found itself in a PR nightmare. Still, PaidContent points out how defensive the blog’s final entry is. Come on. Don’t make a bad situation worse. Blaming the people who uncovered you is a very bad idea.
19 Comments Add your own
1. discreet_chaos | October 19th, 2006 at 12:02 am
I wasn’t aware of the story, but as they say in the last entry, they were real people on a real trip. I really don’t see the controversy or how this differs from the recent “Emily’s Blog” (except that she wasn’t real), or any number of “corporate” blogs, or why it’d matter to anyone except for those who oppose Walmart at every turn.
Whooptie-doo! A pro-Walmart group sponsored a blog that apparently included their advertising and somebody was too dumb to realize that it’s sponsored. As if that ad in the right-hand column, which is mentioned in the BusinessWeek pieces and archived in the Google Cache wasn’t a giveaway.
I’m sure the blogger had a positive experience. I’m not being paid, but you generally don’t hear people complaining who work for Walmart. In this town, Walmart is considered a good job and I’m sure that’s true in most of smalltown America. And, as far as I know, the only “negative” from RVing in Walmart parking lots is that most stores limit the number of vehicles they’ll take and they don’t allow them to put out any lawn furniture. Heck, for the past couple of weeks, my local Walmart’s lot has been near capacity because the snowbirds are passing through. I haven’t been down to survey the current crop, but I’ve never heard any of my RVing, retired friends or acquaintances complain.
Maybe I’m missing something, but from what’s available at this point in time, it really just looks like someone was too motivated in an anti-Walmart direction and too blind to see a banner ad.
2. discreet_chaos | October 19th, 2006 at 12:27 am
After all, why would thousands of people spend the night in Walmart parking lots every day, if it wasn’t a positive experience? And, why were so many bloggers drawn to an RVing blog, if it wasn’t for the hunt?
3. Steve Safran | October 19th, 2006 at 5:36 am
I like WalMart. I have no agenda against them. I simply believe that a company that is going to put up a couple of people to blog for them should disclose that’s what they’re doing. It would have been a perfectly useful blog - I had no idea people parked their RVs at the stores and were welcome to do so.
TRANSPARENCY. It’s what bloggers demand. We criticize the media’s lack of transparency. We won’t tolerate it in corporations or anyone else.
4. discreet_chaos | October 19th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Once again, I wasn’t familiar with the situation as it occured, so I only have the Google Cache and some of the exagerated nonsense that comes-up using Google’s blogsearch as a basis. I’ll agree that transparency would be ideal, but I don’t think that anyone should award themselves a Pulitzer for discovering that a sponsored blog was actually sponsored.
In my earlier comment, I referenced the truly fake “Emily’s Blog” and I know of other examples from the manner in which some of my friends make a living, but really, how is “Working Families for Walmart’s” sponsorship and banner ad any more forthcoming than product placement? I mean, how many people read the end credits of “Rockford Files” and saw in a brief flash that the show had a relationship with Pontiac, then they extrapolated that’s the reason he always had a new Firebird and the program remains the only place that I’ve ever seen a Trans Am station wagon?
A folksy blog about people in an RV isn’t journalism and if the couple wasn’t making money from the front end, then they’d most likely try to make it from the back with a book, movie or something. I wasn’t saying that you’re anti-Walmart, but anyone who cared enough to actually “investigate” this story either had an agenda, or they mistakenly think that the internet is someplace special.
5. Vanessa | November 7th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
just checkin things out
6. x rated adult birthday ca&hellip | January 24th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
tericka dye porn movie clips…
undressing pics amateur breasts…
7. babe ruth softball distri&hellip | February 22nd, 2007 at 7:09 pm
sexy hands calendars…
asian porn star directory…
8. Andros | May 17th, 2007 at 5:00 am
interesting
9. Evis | May 20th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Nice
10. Apostolos | July 9th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Interesting…
11. Aristotelis | July 9th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
interesting
12. Gustas | July 9th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Cool.
13. Lazaros | July 9th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
interesting
14. Eleni | July 10th, 2007 at 2:23 am
interesting
15. Sophocles | July 10th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Sorry
16. Achilleas | July 10th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Interesting…
17. Romanos | July 10th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Cool!
18. Ambrosios | September 8th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Sorry
19. Mamadshah | November 20th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Cool!
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed