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Other Bloghers have eloquently weighed in about the Wal-Mart/Edelman ethics issue. Liz Thompson,HeatherB, and Pam all wrote great posts and there have been lots of comments.
But now, there is more news. In chronological order, first there was the "outing" which included Wal-Mart as well as their PR Agency, Edelman.
This was followed by the "silence"; then the Edelman apology which included the requisite acceptance of responsibility and promise to "do
better."
I believe something was said about efforts to ensure that all Edelman employees would be trained in the "code"....could this have been an explanation for where the "unsupervised" summer intern who was blamed for leaving an "anonymous" comment on Jeff Jarvis' blog continued his career after his "lapse" adversely effected his client, Dell's entry into blogging? In other words, was Edelman blaming inexperienced junior staff for this? The intern strikes again.
Even though this was the second public disclosure lapse involving Edelman and Wal-Mart, for the most part, the blogosphere was empathetic and forgiving. I found this more than a little surprising.
WOMMA while acknowledging that Edelman clearly violated the WOMMA Code of Ethics, said
that based upon Edelman's public announcement aw well as private meetings that they had with Edelman, that "We are assured by Edelman
management's public actions to accept full
responsibility, pledge to make certain that the error will not be repeated, and again endorse the WOMMA Ethics Code."
However, yesterday Edelman revealed that there were more "lapses." MediaPost reported that "Until the new disclosures, both blogs appeared to have been created and contributed to by independent supporters of the big box retailer, an Edelman client.
One blog appears on the home page of Working Families for Wal-Mart, the allegedly grassroots advocacy group formed by Edelman last December, The second blog is on WFWM's subsidiary site Paid Critics.
The Paid Critics blog is devoted to "exposing" links between unions and other vested interests that are "smearing Wal-Mart" through the media. As a result of the new transparency, every entry on the blogs is now credited to one of three contributors: Miranda, Brian or Kate. A click on these single monikers reveals biographies of Edelman employees Miranda Gill, Brian McNeill and Kate Marshall, whose clients include OK, so it is duly noted that Edelman Wouldn't one have thought that the firm who has published the Edelman Trust Barometer, Shouldn't we expect someone who wrote, One would think that the founder of the "me2revolution" would have already trained his foot soldiers in the culture of blogs. "Apparently no one trained Laura in the culture of blogs. Or clued her into the fact that blogs are more than "diaries" but the building blocks of an extended real online social community" as noted by Toby at Diva Marketing.Laura is one of the Wal-mart accross America crew.
Andy Sernovitz of WOMMA says in AdAge that, BL Ochman
which is "committed to fostering open and honest dialogue...that conveys the positive contributions of Wal-Mart to working families."
Until yesterday, blog entries on both WFWM and Paid Critics were uncredited. Thursday, bylines were added to blog posts "in response to
comments and emails."
Working Families for Wal-Mart, the sites say." Are these the Edelman employees that are "responsible" for this mess?
apparently disclosed this voluntarily. Today, on Richard Edelman's blog, Richard announced that steps were being taken to to ensure that all Edelman employees, around the world, are aware of, educated in and understand something that I thought Edelman communicated that he and his firm STOOD for: TRUST.
year after year, headed by someone who gives presentations
applauding his firm's long term success as a pillar of trust, authenticity, transparency would already be training his own employees?
"In short, we want to persuade our corporate clients to commit to the blogosphere... to allow employees to be the first line of credible offense for corporate initiatives, to reach out to stakeholders such as NGOs and to co-create the brand story and corporate reputation with informed and passionate on-line participants" would have training HIS employees first? Not after the mess up {s}?
"The complexity of all this social media is that it doesn't have the
controls of traditional marketing." I think he means that social media
doesn't have the FTC; that is true. PR, as a dis- intermediated media
is not a new concept though.
