NYT: Wal-Mart Counters Criticism With a Political-Style Ad Campaign

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/business/media/29walmart.html?_r=2&fta=y&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: August 29, 2006

Wal-Mart, under attack now from unions and prominent Democrats, yesterday introduced a marketing campaign that closely resembles the television advertisements used by political candidates.


Two television spots from Wal-Mart are meant to blunt attacks by unions and some Democratic candidates.


In a local experiment that is eventually to be seen across the country, the giant discount retailer began broadcasting two television spots that, in unusually detailed terms, trumpet its health care plans, charitable contributions and positive impact on the American economy.

The ads do not attack Wal-Mart critics but introduce its merits, much as a candidate would. “Our low prices save the average working family $2,300 a year,” says the narrator of one ad. “Which buys a lot of things — and a whole lot of freedom.”

For Wal-Mart, the ads represent a significant departure from its practice of rebutting critics in the media but presenting itself, at least in consumer television marketing, as untroubled by its image problems.

Increasingly, however, Wal-Mart appears to believe it has failed to persuade the public that its benefits and wages are generous, leaving it open to attacks from union-backed groups and political parties. Democratic presidential contenders, for example, have seized on the company as a symbol of substandard pay and health insurance, hoping to address voters’ economic anxieties.

Robert S. McAdam, Wal-Mart’s vice president of corporate affairs, said the new ads were not a response to attacks by senior Democrats like Senators Joseph Biden of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana but, rather, an effort to “clear up” what he called inaccurate perceptions.

FULL story at link.

[wellst0nev0ter]

1. The Prices Will Rise Only 2 Percent

if Wal-mart pays its wage earners 3 more dollars an hour. Anything other than that is just useless maundering.

[HughBeaumont]

2. "Thousands of new American jobs"

You know, because a job's a job's a job, right?

Never mind that it's representative of stagnation to go from working in manufacturing or industry making $15-30 an hour to making $8-12 an hour at MalWart.

Never mind that their benefits are either non-existent or minimal.

Never mind that Big Box Marts discourage free enterprise and kills small businesses thanks to their wholesale cost advantage.

Never mind that all you're doing when you shop there is making four insanely wealthy people and their immediate minions insanely wealthier, all the while ballooning our trade deficit and making a human/labor rights-void nation's slave class expand ten-fold.

If I were them, I wouldn't go with that angle.