Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers: Sit and Spin (Sincerely, Edelman PR)
I'm no fan of Wal-Mart. I can count the number of times I've been in one of their stores with a middle finger. In theory, I wouldn't have a problem with huge national retail chains since they should deliver the economic benefit of better operating efficiencies to provide lower costs to consumers. Cheaper copies of Zoolander and Zoloft can only make us a stronger nation. On the whole, I'm sure they also employ many more people than all of the smaller-scale outlets they've displaced, but here is exactly where they royally-farm fuck the system. Corporate greed has triumphed over the noble opportunity, nay, their social responsibility to provide all 1.3 million employees—enough to fill every major league baseball stadium if they ever decided to throw the world's biggest company night outing—with the kind of benefits that would never be available in thousands of unaffiliated, independent mom-and-pop shops.
Much more thorough, intelligent and coherent material on the subject can be found on consumer advocate sites like WalmartWatch.com where I found this interesting article and graphic from the Wall Street Journal on Wal-Mart's expansion plans. Gothamist, here's your map of the day.
That's just floor space square-footage, I figure if you throw in SUV parking-lotage it would fill in the rest, probably Williamsburg and Red Hook too.
Consumerist has done a great job of tracking the latest blown engine of Wal-Mart's PR machine, Edelman, which involved a buffalo-chipped and flackery-filled fake blog called Wal-Marting Across America. The strong swinging tire iron of tired irony here is that Edelman has tried to position itself at the cool kids table of the social media revolution with blogging and being transparent to consumers. Fortunately, dishonesty and hypocrisy are ferreted out with a quick identification of mouse-clickings in the Internet Age. If no one else has compared Edelman to Mark Foley, let me be the first.
Separated at Truth?
A) In the House of Representatives, Mark Foley was one of the foremost opponents of child pornography. Foley had served as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He introduced a bill in 2002 to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children, saying that "these websites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles."
Source: Wikipedia
B) In the out-house of public relations, Edelman was one of the foremost proponents of establishing honesty and transparency at all times. Edelman's Rick Murray serves on the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Board of Directors. He co-chaired its ethics committee during the first year and helped introduce the WOMMA Code of Ethics. He says, "There's a right way and a wrong way to think about and approach the blogosphere, and public relations professionals who get it wrong will get burned – it's that simple."
Source: WOMMA
Related: Wal-Mart PR Guru Passes the Buck
UPDATE: This is why Jeff Jarvis is my blog hero. I imagine him singing the refrain "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" à la Rage Against the Machine. Hoot at the moon, people. Be the owl.
Much more thorough, intelligent and coherent material on the subject can be found on consumer advocate sites like WalmartWatch.com where I found this interesting article and graphic from the Wall Street Journal on Wal-Mart's expansion plans. Gothamist, here's your map of the day.
That's just floor space square-footage, I figure if you throw in SUV parking-lotage it would fill in the rest, probably Williamsburg and Red Hook too.
Consumerist has done a great job of tracking the latest blown engine of Wal-Mart's PR machine, Edelman, which involved a buffalo-chipped and flackery-filled fake blog called Wal-Marting Across America. The strong swinging tire iron of tired irony here is that Edelman has tried to position itself at the cool kids table of the social media revolution with blogging and being transparent to consumers. Fortunately, dishonesty and hypocrisy are ferreted out with a quick identification of mouse-clickings in the Internet Age. If no one else has compared Edelman to Mark Foley, let me be the first.
Separated at Truth?
A) In the House of Representatives, Mark Foley was one of the foremost opponents of child pornography. Foley had served as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He introduced a bill in 2002 to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children, saying that "these websites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles."
Source: Wikipedia
B) In the out-house of public relations, Edelman was one of the foremost proponents of establishing honesty and transparency at all times. Edelman's Rick Murray serves on the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Board of Directors. He co-chaired its ethics committee during the first year and helped introduce the WOMMA Code of Ethics. He says, "There's a right way and a wrong way to think about and approach the blogosphere, and public relations professionals who get it wrong will get burned – it's that simple."
Source: WOMMA
Related: Wal-Mart PR Guru Passes the Buck
UPDATE: This is why Jeff Jarvis is my blog hero. I imagine him singing the refrain "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" à la Rage Against the Machine. Hoot at the moon, people. Be the owl.
