3W Design Group - Media

The October 8, 2006 edition of BusinessWeek online features a tale by Pallavi Gogoi illustrating a new media version of astroturfing or the faking of grassroots support. This particular example is the story of two people traveling cross-country in an RV staying overnight in Wal-Mart parking lots (the company lets RVs stay in their parking lots overnight for free) and interviewing Wal-Mart employees and customers. The couple, Jim and Laura, are traveling and blogging for the organization Working Families for Wal-Mart. What their “folksy blog” fails to mention is that Wal-Mart is paying for their RV (which is emblazoned with the Working Families for Wal-mart logo); their gas; their expenses; AND they are paying Laura for her blogging services. Gogoi uncovers the truth about this shameless PR effort.

From the story:

Every Wal-Mart employee that Laura and Jim run into, from store clerks to photogenic executives, absolutely loves to work at the store. Sound like a great Wal-Mart publicity campaign? Anyone familiar with Wal-Mart and its reputation for being quite stingy with wages and benefits will roll their eyes at such a rosy picture. In fact, some critics are so skeptical that they wonder whether Jim and Laura are real or whether they were concocted at the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

Read the whole story here.

An organization called WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) offers guidelines for word-of-mouth advertising.