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.
The Paid Critics blog is devoted to "exposing" links between unions and
other vested interests that are "smearing Wal-Mart" through the media.
Until yesterday, blog entries on both WFWM and Paid Critics were
uncredited. Thursday, bylines were added to blog posts "in response to
comments and emails."
Last week, the travel blog "Wal-Marting Across America" was shut down
following revelations that it was the work of two writers paid by WFWM.
As a result of the new transparency, every entry on the blogs is now
credited to one of three contributors: Miranda, Brian or Kate. A click
on these single monikers reveals biographies of Edelman employees
Miranda Gill, Brian McNeill and Kate Marshall, whose clients include
Working Families for Wal-Mart, the sites say.
While noting that he was speaking in generalities and not to this
specific situation, Dave Balter, president of the Boston word-of-mouth
marketing firm BzzAgent, said: "Even if you're doing the right thing
but you know you're going to deceive people, you have to do everything
to make sure it's completely transparent, and any tactic that crosses
that line you're doing a disservice to the brand [and] the consumer."
The spokesperson for WFWM, Edelman employee Donna Lewis-Johnson, said
the company was now being completely transparent. She said WFWM is a
client of Edelman separate from its Wal-Mart account, but could not
confirm that WFWM pays Edelman for its work. She said Edelman's
employees make up some but not all of the WFWM staff. She said that
WFWM accepts funding from Wal-Mart, but did not know how much.
In a May New York Times
article about WFWM, a member of the group's steering committee, Martha
Montoya, said she was not aware of any financing that group received
outside of Wal-Mart.
A spokesperson for Wal-Mart referred all questions to WFWM.
One observer questioned whether once a flog becomes transparent, its original purpose is rendered moot.
"Once you make this kind of revelation, you need to question whether
[the strategy] is even effective anymore," said Virginia Miracle,
director of word-of-mouth marketing for Brains on Fire, in Greenville,
SC. "This is a very difficult time. As the media has exploded, the
ethical guidelines have not been growing at the same rate."
Another critic called the situation "ridiculous," and pointed out the
innate contradiction and paradoxical dilemma Edelman is facing.
"Doesn't anybody at Edelman see the irony behind having their own paid
critics writing Wal-Mart's Paid Critics blog?" asks Sean Carton, a
blogger, author of eight books about technology and the Internet, and
chief strategy officer for Baltimore interactive consultancy idfive.
"This was a brilliant idea, in its way, but it was evil and they got
caught. It was old media thinking in the new media world, and you can't
get away with that [stuff] anymore."
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