It’s making sweeping commitments to reduce America’s energy use and improve its health care system. It’s obsessively polling voters, boasting of a higher favorability rating than Congress. It’s even touting an “economic stimulus plan for American shoppers” in the form of steep price cuts made last week. (Four 12-packs of Pepsi? $10.)That last one may be slightly tongue in cheek — even discount retailers have a sense of humor — but the bigger message is not: after years of running afoul of the United States government on labor and environmental issues, Wal-Mart now aspires to be like the government, bursting through political logjams and offering big-picture solutions to intractable problems.
The article mentions that its rapid response to disaster has been good for business. See Katrina examples at http://video.walmartstores.com/video/ For a more recent case, closer to home, see below:
2 comments:
Now, if the PR woman had been very, very astute, she would have also given a rough cash value of the other clothing and such that Wal Mart gave in addition to the $1M, or at least given a larger ballpark number of "at least X," in order to make the donation seem even more impressive. Of course, if you cite the dollar amount too many times, you run the risk of the plebeians, err, public, seeing through the elaborate ruse.
And I think I would have hit home harder--can one do alliteration with 'h's?--the idea that Wal Mart is "helping these victims" because the company, "like everyone else in your town," is worried about "folks like you and me."
The fire relief Wal-Mart provided to the fire victims of San Diego is a clear attempt by Wal-Mart to improve their image in the San Diego community, especially after suffering some setbacks by city council decisions in San Diego County to limit Wal-Mart expansions into Supercenters
(see http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070927/news_1mi27walmart.html for example). But even so, I doubt many of the fire victims let alone the public, or the "plebians" as Chris likes to refer to in Roman terms, would care so much that Wal-Mart is giving relief in the form of a publicity stunt. In a time of crisis such as the fires, I think the victims care more about the fact that they're getting relief rather than that Wal-Mart is using them for PR purposes, especially when the economy is as bad as it is. Wal-Mart's strategy of giving financial aid to the victims of a crisis are then effective in two ways: one, they improve their public image in the community; two, most people don't dwell on the previous fact as a negative thing and see Wal-Mart's contribution as a charitable, sincere gift.
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