Wal-Mart Goes On Offense
Wal-Mart has apparently had enough of the union led campaign of Democratic presidential hopefuls beating on them at every opportunity. They are going direct to the people with television ads designed to counter the offensive against them. Up until now, they have made their points to reporters, now they are going direct without the media filters.
The world's largest retailer, increasingly a lightning rod for politicians as well as labor unions and other activists, cites the legacy of late founder Sam Walton in a folksy 60-second ad. A 30-second ad focuses on Wal-Mart's health insurance plans for its more than 1.3 million U.S. employees.
"It all began with a big dream in a small town, Sam Walton's dream," a narrator says as one ad starts with a black-and-white photo of Sam Walton and a grainy shot of Walton's first five-and-dime store in what is now the chain's headquarters town of Bentonville, Ark.
"Sam's dream. Your neighborhood Wal-Mart," the ad ends.
Both ads recite key points Wal-Mart has been making to reporters for months about its record, but the ads now take the arguments straight to the public.
The nation's largest private employer says it creates tens of thousands of jobs a year, offers employee health plans for as little as $23 a month, saves "the average working family" more than $2,300 a year through its low prices and is a major contributor to local charities with donations last year totaling more than $245 million.
In a news release about the ads, Wal-Mart said a survey of its employees nationwide last summer found 88 percent believe the company is a good corporate citizen and 81 percent would recommend a Wal-Mart job to a friend.
Company spokesman David Tovar declined to say how much Wal-Mart is spending on the ads, which were tested last summer in Tucson, Ariz., and Omaha, Neb. They will run for an as-yet undetermined period on national broadcast and cable networks as well as in a "couple of dozen" individual markets, Tovar said.
Steven Silvers, a corporate reputation management expert with Denver-based consultancy GBSM Inc., said it was strategically smart of Wal-Mart to take its case directly to the public to counter mounting attacks.
"If they're targeted, they have to get their message out there," Silvers said. "It's because they have become political fodder. They have to frame the discussion."
There are millions of people who shop at Wal-Mart every week. The campaign against Wal-Mart is as much against those people as it is against the company. Wal-Mart is taking an opportunity to go direct to those people. The Democrat's embrace of the Anti-Wal-Mart jihad being drummed up by the unions could well hurt them.
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Blue Crab Boulevard » And The Polls Say….. — Monday, 8 January , 2007 @ 7:12 am
By Bleepless, Sunday, 7 January , 2007 @ 6:13 pm
I remember seeing just such a commercial on tv a couple of months ago, and thinking that it was about time they stopped conceding the dispute by hoping that it would go away. It must have been a trial balloon and, since they are going to go full blast, it must have gotten a lot of positive response.