Take a look at both images. One is from the official, um, fake, grassroots Walmart site ForWalmart.com (that calls itself ‘Working Families For Walmart’).

The other is a sharp stick poking Walmart in the eye. It’s run by WalmartWatch, who has registered the domain ‘WorkingFamiliesforWalmart.com.

The anti-Walmart site had been registered in April this year. The scandal about the WalmartingAcrossAmerica blog (domain had been registered on the 24th August 2006) broke in October in Businessweek. Note the question mark after the word Walmart. and of course the unhappy faces in the spoof header. There are other subtleties, such as the link ‘Paid Supporters’ (to counter the original site’s ‘Paid Critics’ link, etc.

Thanks to Jaffe Juice for tipping me off to the story.

But the larger question for PR people is whether WalmartingAcrossAmerica was an astroturf campaign or a pathetic attempt to hide behind the curtain. More than being a fake grassroots attempt, it is a combination of a ‘flog’ (fake blog) and PR Puppetry (PRP) -meaning someone pulling the strings tries to hide from the audience. If you think about it, there is a lot of PRP that has gone on under the guise of advertising, too. We’re going to see a lot of exposes like this soon, as the transparency effect takes hold.