Bloggers For Wal-Mart

If you're reading Sam Walton's book, Made in America, and see a NY Times' headline featuring Wal-Mart, it's a cinch you'll click the link and read the story.

When you do, you can't help but chuckle. Sam Walton's done it again!

For the most part, Sam tackled money expenditures as if he still faced hardscrabble times of the Great Depression. And he never believed in spending much money on advertising.

That's why you've gotta chuckle.

Wal-Mart is currently getting an enormous amount of advertising -- absolutely FREE. What a rip!

It's 2006 and for most companies advertising is the cost that is twisting their tails and making them howl in pain. So how is it that Wal-Mart is getting theirs free?

Well, it seems Wal-Mart and the Edelman firm teamed up. And produced a public relations campaign which feeds bloggers pre-written Wal-Mart advertising hype via email. The bloggers, in turn, post this hype on their sites. It is often written as their own opinions without reference to a source.

Does Wal-Mart, who earns $300 Billion a year in sales, PAY the bloggers to promote its business?

Nope! Not a penny.

Before reading Walton's book, I would have seen this as a pretty chintzy ploy, yet now, I can't help but see it as clever advertising tactics. Even from his grave, Sam has trumped the system, beaten the odds, and accomplished the impossible once again.
Bloggers For Wal-Mart © 2006 Chaeli Lee Sullivan