Comments on: What PR won’t fix

By: FreshNetworks Blog » Blog Archive » Do we need the Unfair Trading Regulations?

Fri, 23 May 2008 11:40:20 +0000

[...] What PR won’t fix [...]

By: FreshNetworks Blog » Blog Archive » The baby monitor principle

FreshNetworks Blog » Blog Archive » The baby monitor principle — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:22:48 +0000

[...] What PR won’t fix [...]

By: Steve Clancy

Steve Clancy — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:19:11 +0000

So much for not being evil:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/15/googles-dont-be-evil-not-ordained-motto-says-marissa-mayer/

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:39:07 +0000

Thanks for your comments. I’m in pr; but am a “no hype” pr firm. Just the facts. I even own the domain, suingwalmart.com

By: friarminor

friarminor — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:28:58 +0000

All the money changing hands just made me dizzy.

Lawyers. You just love working with them – rare few that is.

By: jc

jc — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:06:14 +0000

Just like all the big corporations, in America today, everything is based on GREED.
Profits are needed, that I understand, but the questions are (1) can there be a point where a company says, we are good and the people factor comes into play? (2) Don’t they understand, that if they put the people first, the profits will be there???

GREEDY GREEDY GREEDY.

Poor Sam is turning over in his grave.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:08:52 +0000

Right,
The question is whether a company even stops to ask what good is.

By: Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:16:52 +0000

“I question the use of absolutes here – that Wal-mart is always evil and Google is always good.”

I would question whether anyone said anything remotely like that.

Raise your hands: who here thinks Google is always good?

By: Buffalo Pundit » Blog Archive » I Can Haz Friday Post? Kthxbai

Buffalo Pundit » Blog Archive » I Can Haz Friday Post? Kthxbai — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:52:46 +0000

[...] Jarvis ponders a Wal*Mart that adopts Google’s simple “Don’t Be Evil” [...]

By: For Crisis Managers, Image Repair May be the Best Solution « Young Blood PR

For Crisis Managers, Image Repair May be the Best Solution « Young Blood PR — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:32:21 +0000

[...] amount of rhetorical ninjitsu or apologetical limbo-contortion can completely restore the likes of Wal-Mart or Eliot Spitzer. Time can heal wounds, but in the world of on-demand-results and Google tattoos, [...]

By: chico haas

chico haas — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:01:20 +0000

Amphibian: “I think Walmartâ€™s advantage lies more in the aggregation of somewhat cheap (and somewhat crappy) products and services in one giant building.”

Absolutely true. I hope I didn’t unwittingly suggest otherwise. It’s a sobering experience to spend some time in a Walmart.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:53:40 +0000

So you criticise Walmart for a bad PR move, while giving them bad PR in an effort to make your claim true. Rather self-fulfilling, that. I suppose we could extend that to any amount of PR extortion: do what I say or I will make you look bad, then blame you for being too stupid to do the correct PR move.

You suggest that there is moral fault because the woman’s situation is dire, but can’t seem to spell out exactly what Walmart did that is wrong. It looks bad to you because the woman is suffering and Walmart is rich. That doesn’t qualify as a moral principle. The comment wondering why her own lawyers escaped your condemnation is fair. Her lawyers didn’t pay her medical bills in advance – Walmart did. But hey, you’ve got your narrative based on feelings, and inconvenient facts are tossed aside.

Don’t ever become a mediator or marriage counselor, okay?

By: Christoph

Christoph — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:15:12 +0000

Until people stop shopping at Wal-Mart, they won’t change their methods!
Change has to start from consumers but unfortunately most of them are not willing to do so…

By: Hyphenated American

Hyphenated American — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:00:11 +0000

Some time ago, Ayn Rand noted that leftists hate capitalists with same fervor as Nazis hate the Jews – and with pretty much same justice. This article proves that her point is 100% accurate. Let me reiterate the facts, with a tiny change – instead of saying “Wal-Mart”, I will call it “Jew-Mart”.

1. Jew-Mart employee Shanks was hit by a truck and suffered horrible injuries (this happened at her own time).
2. Jew-Mart paid for the medical expenses at the tune of $470,000.
3. The doctors who were treating Shanks collected this money in full.
4. Shanks hired a lawyer and sued the trucking company. The trucking company paid 1 million dollars.
5. Shanks lawyers took $583,000 of Shanks money.
6. Jew-Mart asked to be reimbursed the money it paid for the medical care from the sum that was won from the trucking company – the same money that was supposed to pay for Shanks medical care.
7.Jew-Mart got only $275,000, with the unknown amount going to the lawyers.
8.A lot of liberals wrote innumerable articles and faked outraged at Jew-Mart.

Clearly, any rational individual would be surprised at the liberal outrage. What was evil in Jew-Mart’s actions? For example, no one thinks that Kerry is evil – even though he did not volunteer to pay for Shanks medical care. The liberals are not outraged at the doctors for collecting $470,000. Liberals don’t think that the lawyers who got $583,000 are evil. Only the Jew-Mart is evil. Why? Yes, it’s blind hatred of Jew-Wal-Mart, nothing else.

By: amphibian

amphibian — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:30:18 +0000

Chico, is Walmart truly offering services and products at prices unavailable elsewhere? I think Walmart’s advantage lies more in the aggregation of somewhat cheap (and somewhat crappy) products and services in one giant building.

Reading an interview with Walmart’s CEO Scott in the Wall Street Journal about the company’s direction regarding greener energy infuriated me. Some of the other CEOs were obviously just throwing out buzzwords and trying to make nice, but Scott was pretty upfront about his fervent belief that the traditional Walmart mind-set requires no modifications or change to deal with the changes ahead.

These people do not believe they’re ever wrong.

By: chico haas

chico haas — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:31:56 +0000

On blogs and in nice neighborhoods, Walmart’s existence is reviled. In reality, Walmart offers working and non-working people a variety of products and services at a price that is unavailable to them anywhere else. I’m not hot for Walmart by any means. Being in one motivates me to be work hard and make money in the same way that the “Scared Straight” documentary frightens young people into avoiding brushes with the law.

By: Peter I

Peter I — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:16:46 +0000

Even as an Edelman competitor, I think it’s unfair to link them to this one. I think you may be overestimating the PR budgets of companies like Wal-Mart and, if you’re just using it for context, you might want to go after some of their much larger marketing costs, like paid media or direct mail. Regardless of what you may think of how a company operates, cutting back on PR is hardly the most obvious way to cover these kinds of oversights. I’d encourage you to look into actual marketing costs instead of just guessing at them.

By: Will

Will — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:14:45 +0000

I might be missing something, but I’m not sure how this policy is “evil.” If I read the story right, then the policy was that if the company paid for your medical bills, then you won a lawsuit that awarded you damages for those bills, the company thought it deserved to get back what it initially put in for your treatment. Perhaps that’s profit-driven-amorality, but it doesn’t quite seem like evil – it seems more like Google electing to censor itself in China in order to gain greater access to that market. Except that, well, Google’s management did that on purpose with full knowledge of the situation – I doubt any WalMart execs or board members even heard about this until it went to the media. That’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. There’s no way management can individually consider the claims of 2 million employees. So they made a policy they thought would work best in the most situations (the company gets back what it gives out). When that turned out to be shoddy policy (as was the case here), the company acted in accordance with public opinion and reversed itself. It’s not perfect, it might not even be “good,” but I think we’re fooling ourselves if we think management is going to look at every company action to determine its “goodness.”

By: "Don’t be Evil" is not just a Saying | Whatsup

"Don’t be Evil" is not just a Saying | Whatsup — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:56:18 +0000

[...] BuzzMachine – What PR wonâ€™t fix, comes a story about a former Wal-Mart employee who was hit by a truck, is severely brain-damaged, [...]

By: Aneez Kanji

Aneez Kanji — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:50:10 +0000

I agree with Pat Thonton. Companies are a reflection of it’s customers, and WalMart won’t change a thing until their customers demand it, and show it by not shopping there. The managers, PR, and lawyers are not the ones who have failed Debbie Shank – WalMart customers are.

By: JT Carpenter

JT Carpenter — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:52:24 +0000

Peter Lynch said it best years ago when he said to only invest in companies that were so easy to manage that a monkey could do it because, eventually, one would. It would seem clear that the monkeys have taken over at Wal-Mart now.

Sam Walton must be spinning in his grave so fast that he’s causing tornadoes.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:03:39 +0000

From Wal-Mart, to the companies that sell to them, to the companies who service them, to the people who work there, to the people who shop there – all of them have a role to play in the culpability.

You can include a large percentage of the American population in this group.

Until people are willing to (or can, which is an even bigger hurdle) vote with their values, rather than their need/desire for money then companies like Walmart will be able to manipulate their providers and their employees without regard for their well-being.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:24:58 +0000

Steve,
I’m saying that they might as well have thrown whatever they spent on PR counsel out out the window for they blew it all with their venal stupidity.
No, it’s Wal-Mart’s management that deserves the kick for not setting a culture of decency. The buck stops there. And stop it does, indeed.

By: Steve Ellis

Steve Ellis — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:41:30 +0000

Far be it from me to defend the competition, but – unless you have evidence that Edelman was consulted on this ahead of the case and actually advised it made sense to proceed – then I’d strongly suspect that it got presented with this situation, and was then asked to administer the lipstick to the pig that was dropped in their lap by the legal dept.

I don’t believe any PR advisor would recommend this route, even if they were sleepwalking on the account (on their way to the bank perhaps).

I’m with Matt V – if anyone needs a kicking its Wal-Mart’s lawyers or their legal dept.

By: Mark Dionne

Mark Dionne — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:40:51 +0000

I hate WalMart as much as anyone, but in this case, I think don’t think what WalMart is doing is so bad.

My mother tripped fell in an office where there was a dangerous condition, and lost the sight in one eye. Her medical insurance paid the bills. A lawyer collected from the office (after several years), took one third, and then the medical insurance people had to be reimbursed. This is standard procedure. I know of other cases.

So it looks like WalMart is just doing the standard thing here. It looks really bad for their public image. The bad publicity is probably costing them more than $400K, and maybe they should just pay up. BUT if they “pay up” in this case, then they are being unfair to everyone else who works for them who has been in a similar situation, and that is probably thousands of people who are going to be really pissed off if they don’t get a similar deal.