Edelman and the one-sided conversation

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The first inkling I had that Edelman PR had stumbled again in its social media efforts on behalf of client WalMart came early yesterday when Laurel English emailed me a copy of the MediaPost story. Shortly after that, Donna Simmons—past president of PRSA’s Inland Empire (California) chapter forwarded along the same story. I covered the story in yesterday’s FIR, and have since been following coverage in the blogosphere. There has been plenty, not surprisingly. (And that’s just a small sampling; there’s more here, here, and elsewhere.)

The one source from which we haven’t heard—at least, as far as I can tell—is Edelman.

In case you missed the story, a blog ostensibly authored by a couple traveling across America in their RV and spending nights parked in WalMart parking lots turned out to be a fake blog, the brainchild of WalMart’s PR counselors at Edelman. While fake blogs (and other fake social media) are nothing new, it’s dismaying to see it emerge from Edelman, which has some of the smarter new-media people on its staff (Phil Gomes, Michael Wiley, Steve Rubel and more), and which touts itself as the PR firm that truly gets social media. This is the third time (as Todd Defren noted in his post) that Edelman has botched the whole social media thing on WalMart’s behalf.

Those smart PR folks working for Edelman are among the members of the PR community who advocate participation in the conversation. Some of them have been brutal when, to their way of thinking, somebody else fails to understand what it means to be engage in the conversation. So where is Edelman in this particular conversation? Missing in action. As dismaying as this latest misstep is, it’s even more dismaying to see Edelman’s high-powered social media experts failing to walk the talk. Nothing from Richard in his vaunted 6 a.m. blog. Nothing from Steve, who blogs at the pinnacle of PR’s A-list. Nothing from anybody (based on a Technorati search and a survey of the Edelman blogs).

I was surprised when PRWeek issued its Agency Excellence Survey (PDF), where Edelman ranked pretty low in terms of its social media savvy. Today, it doesn’t seem so surprising at all.

1. Shel, the PRWeek link points to Edelman.

   Posted by Sebastian  on  10/13  at  03:10 AM

2. I’m trying to withhold complete judgment until we hear from Edelman itself. It’s absolutely shocking that we still haven’t.

   Posted by Bryan Person, Bryper.com  on  10/13  at  04:57 AM

3. Shel:

   I posted a trackback to this, but then was going through my feeds and came to the Micropersuasion feed. 

   It’s so funny and strange to read the stuff Steve has posted on his blog in light of the elephant in the room.  It just struck me as funny how that’s what is being portrayed and put out to an audience that’s talking about everything but that.

   It really is a parallel of the marketing and PR world.  Companies are still trying to control the message, still trying to tell you what they want you to hear, but we’re talking about something else. 

   The funny thing here is that it’s not that we don’t want to talk to the company, we’re BEGGING them to join the conversation, and they seem to not care.

   Posted by Kevin Behringer  on  10/13  at  05:20 AM

4. Shel, in concurrence and agreement with your comments on yesterday’s FIR about the inappropriate response in the blogospher regarding Apple, I want to reserve my opinion until we hear from Edelman. But I have to tell you, if no reasonable explanation emerges, and given that Edelman has prior mistakes, I think you will have to rethink describing them as “Smart PR folks.”

   What’s that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice (or thrice), shame on me.

   Posted by Craig Jolley  on  10/13  at  05:44 AM

5. Thanks, Sebastien; I fixed the link.

   Posted by Shel Holtz  on  10/13  at  06:55 AM

6. Actually, Craig, the new expression is, “Fool me once, screw you.” (Credit to Joseph Jaffe; that line appears in his book, “Life After the 30 Second Spot.")

   Posted by Shel Holtz  on  10/13  at  06:59 AM

7. I was just being kind. <G>

   Posted by Craig Jolley  on  10/13  at  08:37 AM

8. Elephant in the room indeed! I posted about the Wal-Mart debacle yesterday as well - and got five visits from Edelman staffers for my trouble. Interestingly, I actually had part of the story wrong (since corrected) and yet no one stepped in to correct or refute.

   Asleep at the wheel? Ordered to remain silent? I vote for the latter.

   Posted by maggie fox  on  10/13  at  09:29 AM

9. Outrageous.  Scandalous. 

   The fraud was bad.  The silence is worse.

   Posted by Todd Defren  on  10/13  at  10:11 AM

10. Absolutely fraudulent. We have Edelman listed as one the Smart PR Firms in our Fire Your PR Firm paper, I think it’s time to make an notation citing the the three strikes and your out rule. Too bad and disheartening.

    Posted by James Clark  on  10/13  at  10:41 AM

11. INteresting.  At the Mesh conference in TOronto this year, Rubel was absolutely adamant that fake blogs were a terrible way to promote a product or service (he reiterated his view even after an audience member said he’d love to read a Darth Vader blog, which was met by cheers from the audience.)

    Posted by kareem  on  10/15  at  08:31 AM

12. Why are you even bothering to reiterate the fiction that Edelman has two brain cells to rub together about Weblogs? I have years of experience with their constant screwups.

    Posted by Joe Clark  on  10/15  at  10:29 AM

13. Isn’t this a bigger ethical issue than just a social media issue? I started in PR when it had no credibility. Now Edelman is wishing to return it to that state? Pretty invalidating for people who have spent their careers trying to be taken serioussly.

    Posted by francine hardaway  on  10/15  at  03:10 PM

14. I’ve noticed that the Vespa blog hyped by Steve Rubal is a flop;
    http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=http&#x3A;&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vespaway.com&#x2F;

    Posted by Paul  on  10/15  at  04:41 PM

15. Rubel has some serious owning up to do or his reputation deserves every piece of mud thrown its way. He is violating every blog principle he’s ever stated and he is fast becoming the poster-idiot of hypocrisy if he doesn’t address these issues publicly.

    Posted by Karyn B  on  10/16  at  12:27 AM

16. A classic: to the hammer seller, everything looks like a nail.

    It worked for me before so why not this time around? What’s so special about this new media??

    Methinks Edelman doesn’t grok CGM

    Posted by Gianni  on  10/16  at  03:16 AM

17. agreed. The PR firm is counting its “hits,” not its role in generating a truly new form of communication.  Even Steve Gillmor and those tech journalists who understand Web 2.0 have to eat, so they have to cooperate with PR firms. Steve Rubel has them, and others, as sitting ducks. Rubel groks CGM only twoo well.

    Posted by francine hardaway  on  10/16  at  03:43 AM

18. Oh my gosh!

    Posted by Rita Desai  on  10/16  at  07:14 AM

19. Shel, I have posted my commentary on this matter at http://www.edelman.com\speakup. We have to do better in the future. This was not our finest hour. It took me a while to get all of the facts and I posted as soon as I felt confident. Hold me to this high bar.

    Posted by Richard Edelman  on  10/16  at  10:23 AM

20. Who is on the Wal-Mart social media/online communications team? Steve Rubel says he isn’t. Mike Krempansky is...who else will be held responsible for this?

    Posted by Rita Desai  on  10/16  at  11:13 AM

21. I was interviewed for an quoted in the mediapost story. I expressed the idea that folks are experimenting with Identity.

    See my post on this topic: http://traction.tractionsoftware.com/traction/permalink/Blog270

    Hiding an identity may work positively, at least while the idea is still “new.”

    There was a backlash against LonelyGirl15, but she is still #2 at myspace this week.

    If PR can be measured based on number of hits, Wal-Mart may come out ahead this week. Whether the real effect is negative, or if it just further alienates an already disaffected and specific set of anti-Wal-Mart groups is yet to be seen.

    Posted by Jordan Frank  on  10/18  at  09:56 AM

22. In response to Jordon:

    I don’t know that I’d classify the outing of LonelyGirl15 as backlash, since that vlog had been a blogger/msm parlour guessing game for weeks prior to the story breaking. Additionally, this was a film project created by a screenwriter, filmmaker and actress - not a bogus blog generated by PR people to increase sales for a major US corporation. To my knowledge it was not generating revenue until it was moved to revver as a host, the week it was outted. I also believe that the actress who played Bree is now generating PSA type videos for a UN non-profit now. Talk about using your powers for good.

    I might add, I’m not passing judgement on either party, just adding my opinion on the wide difference between the two.

    Posted by Annie Heckenberger  on  10/23  at  09:05 AM

23. Hoping that by NOW Richard Edelman has been alerted either by someone on here or someone within his global organization that the link he provided is incorrect…

    *sigh*

    Posted by Annie Heckenberger  on  10/23  at  09:12 AM

24. In reference to Annie’s post: I am entirely in agreement that there is a gulf of difference between Wal-Mart and LonelyGirl15. In my blog post, I simply talked about how they are the same: In both cases,

    - the author masked their real identity and purpose.

    - the discovery created even more buzz (positive or negative) than the act of writing the content in the first place.

    In LonelyGirl15’s case she is already benefitting by retaining (or growing) popularity and, as you say, generating revenue through revver and likely getting something (income or reputation points) by representing the UN Non-Profit.

    The jury is out on whether the Wal-Mart scenario will result in a negative or positive outcome (a friend of mine said he actually shopped there recently, just because he saw the name so many times in press related to this incident and that reminded where to find a Wal-Mart when he needed to buy something there or at Target!)

    The jury is also out on what types of scenarios will support identity masking in the future.

    Posted by Jordan Frank  on  10/23  at  09:28 AM

25. Thx Shel for great post.

    Great post, nice idea, excelent and useful information!

    Best Regards

    Posted by Walmart addicted  on  01/15  at  07:31 AM

26. i have redirected from another blog about wallmart’s fake blog. is it true. I don’t think wallmart is something bigger than a retail store. but it is really big that may be the reason people write about it.

    Posted by vijay  on  04/14  at  02:40 AM