Joseph, Shel, John and Todd have all addressed the Wal-Mart fake blog and its implications for Edelman. I agree with them. My expectation was that Rubel would post a comment on his blog by the end of the day yesterday. I thought they'd be huddled in a conference room on a call with Wal-Mart talking about the crisis response strategy. Yesterday came and went and no response.
All of us are asking the same question: why didn't somebody at Edelman say to Wal-Mart, "Hey, this is a bad idea guys; I don't think we should do it"? One of my colleagues pointed out to me that it's hard to say no to Wal-Mart. Which leads me to a question for my PR colleagues: If you were in the same situation and you advised against this strategy and Wal-Mart said "Do it anyway," would you have resigned the account?
While your question is a good one ("would you have resigned the account?") I think a BETTER question is, "Whose idea was this, anyway?"
My sense is that it was an idea developed by Edelman. I think this because it was Edelman that created that fake "Working Families for Wal-Mart" astroturf B.S. in the first place.
Honestly I find it all outrageous.
Specific to your question... My reply is that we have a 3X Rule at SHIFT. We are required to tell a client 3 times, with increasing volume, if we think they are about to make a bone-headed move. After the 3rd attempt, we'll do what they want, "UNLESS it is illegal, immoral, or unethical."
So, yes, I'd rather have lost the account than lost the ability to look in the mirror every morning. Makes it tricky to shave, if nothing else. ;)
Posted by: Todd Defren | October 13, 2006 at 11:59 AM
My answer is that Wal-Mart is on the short list of companies that I would never work for anyway.
If you have a conscience and approach your work with a sense of ethics, morality and justice, you don't have these sort of problems.
Posted by: David Parmet | October 17, 2006 at 07:38 PM