Wal-Mart Blogging? Not this one...

Who: Wal-Mart
What: Wal-Mart’s participation in blogs regarding their corporate information
When: March 2006 and on going
Where: North American locations, read on New York Times website
Why: This case is significant because Wal-Mart is breaking the code of ethics in Public Realtions.
How: Wal-Mart has sent invitations to bloggers to attend media events

This is not a trend, and only a one time event that Wal-Mart has sorted out. I know that this issue is older, but our recent involvement with Wal-Mart has piqued my interest in the topic. This is news worthy because Wal-Mart’s PR department is the focus of this PR case. It seems as though the PR department has forgotten the code of ethics that practitioners are supposed to make, or perhaps Wal-Mart simply has no ethics. The PR workers for the corporation were sending email of corporate information to trusted bloggers to assist in creating a good feel for the company among consumers. The issue is that Wal-Mart denied paying these bloggers and stated that they were writing their own opinion of the brand. It was found that Wal-Mart was feeding the information to the bloggers, and that most blogs mirrored corporate email word for word. The credibility of Wal-Mart seems to be wishy-washy. I’m sure that Wal-Mart wouldn’t be as supportive of trusted bloggers who don’t have the corporation’s best interest in mind. Wal-Mart went so far to actually search out bloggers who took them on and sent them positive information, trying to build the brand. This is unacceptable behavior for any corporation, especially one with a dedicated PR department.

Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/technology/07blog.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=ae7585374bf280b9&ex=1299387600