In the past Wal-Mart has relied on their low prices and convenience to draw in customers, and has not been overly concerned itself with creating a positive image for the overall community. After years of growth Wal-Mart has become one of the world's largest companies, but is increasingly facing public criticism for many of its business practices.

In an attempt to revive poor sales, Wal-Mart has hired the Edelman public relations (edelman.com) to boost their increasingly challenged image. Wal-Mart may have done well to choose this company as their new public relations firm. Edelman is the largest independently owned public relations firm in the world. On their website they list examples of "crisis management" work they have done for clients in the past, such as the natural juice company, Odwalla. In 1996 Odwalla had a public relations crisis when some of their unpasteurized apple juice was sold that was contaminated with E. coli bacteria, resulting in the death of a young girl. But Odwalla is only one of Edelman's smaller clients.

Edelman created a campaign plan to stop a dozen state attorney generals from not filing anti-trust legal actions against Microsoft. Hired by financial services companies, Edelman created Americans for Sensible Estate Tax Solutions, a front group to reduce estate tax. The oil industry's primary lobbying company, the American Petroleum Institute (API), hired Edelman to create a campaign to convince Americans that the oil companies are facing tough times, despite record profits. The company has very impressive client list.

One of the first things that Edelman orchestrated for Wal-Mart was a 49-state campaign to sell generic drugs for $4 a prescription. This went over very well with the public, and Wal-Mart still advertises this coup on their website.

With the knowledge that the bad press was undercutting the company's business, Edelman and Wal-Mart launched a comprehensive national ad campaign to introduce the company's newly found sense of charity and social responsibility to the environment. Donations were made to local charities at several Wal-Mart locations.

Edelman launched a grass-roots group called Working Families for Wal-Mart to help improve the company's image. This was the new image they were trying to create - the appearance of a grassroots movement within the community that was pro-Wal-Mart.

Civil Rights leader Andrew Young, an aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a former congressman, former United Nations ambassador and the former mayor of Atlanta was hired as a spokesman for Working Families for Wal-Mart. His credentials were meant to add the image of cultural sensitivity and depth to the company. Cryptically, Young was forced to resign as spokesman for the group after remarks that he made were printed in the newspapers that were racially offensive.

Temporary workers were hired in Wal-Mart stores to gather e-mail addresses from shoppers at dozens of Wal-Mart stores. The incentive to the customer was that if they signed up they could win food and other prizes. They collected thousands of customer's names and e-mail addresses, whom they sent messages decrying the unfair treatment the store got in the press.

Edelman found a new niche to promote the Wal-Mart's message in 2005. They created a directory of the most influential bloggers, as well as a white paper stressing the growing importance of blogs in the field of public relations. Edelman recognized bloggers as a community that needs to be cultivated just like the traditional media. They sent out press releases to all of the blogs that they deemed appropriate. The stories were about things like a Zogby poll that Wal-Mart felt was unfair, store openings, anti-union stories, eco-friendly products, and how Wal-Mart should not have to pay for employee health insurance.

After a while it was reported by those in the public relations field that Wal-Mart's blog was working, that the public was responding. The public relations campaign to change the image of Wal-Mart to one of a company that is sensitive towards things like community, environment and disaster relief was reviewed by Businessweek. The title of the story was "Can Wal-Mart Wear a White Hat?" Things were looking up for the company it seemed.

A blog was launched by what would seem to be an average American couple, Laura and Jim, who drove from Nevada to Georgia, visiting Wal-Mart's along the way and blogging about the swell time that they were having. This was the perfect grassroots image for the company -. two freewheeling bloggers just heading across America and making friends at Wal-Marts along the way. But the blog did not ring true to its readers. The language of the blog seemed too good to be true, and the press and the blogosphere got involved. It was very quickly revealed that Laura worked for Edelman and Jim worked for the Washington Post.

There was negative publicity all around. Edelman was vilified for its gaffe. The CEO, Richard Edelman, had to issue an apology. The remnants of the faux-blog can still be seen at walmartingacrossamerica.com. The website still maintains that it was true and honest, but glosses over the details while complaining of unfair treatment in the press.

The "influential bloggers" who made up the Internet version of Working Families for Wal-Mart grassroots movement were dutifully posting the pro-Wal-Mart stories, but the majority of the blogosphere was not buying it. The pro-Wal-Mart bloggers were also sloppy, press releases and news stories that were sent to them were often posted without attribution, and were posted word for word. The New York Times wrote an article about Edelman's attempt to sway public sentiment to Wal-Mart by involving bloggers, and all of the headaches it was causing the company.

In the end the two companies seem to have actually caused more bad publicity than good. Edelman was the laughingstock of the public relations industry trade publications for a time, and Wal-Mart's enemies on the Internet were given credence by the legitimate press for numerous leads to stories of interest, including the outing of Laura and Jim.

References
Business Blog Consulting: Wal-Mart Blog PR Backfires
Business Week: Can Wal-Mart Wear a White Hat?
caycompass.com: PR firm remakes Wal-Mart's image
edelman.com: A Commitment (Richard Edelman's apology)
The Intuitive Life Business Blog: Walmart and Edelman PR lead the way on working with bloggers
Micro Persuasion: On Edelman and Wal-Mart
mu-warrior.blogspot.com: The New York Times and the Great Wal-Mart Blogger Conspiracy
prblog.typepad.com: Wal-Mart's Blog is Working
sourcewatch.org: Edelman file
thestate.com: PR firm remaking Wal-Mart's image
walmartfacts.com: Life at Walmart
walmartingacrossamerica.com
washingtontimes.com: Anti-Wal-Mart agitprop