The waiting is over. I wondered why it took so long for Edelman to say this much. The PR agency, which we often uphold as a model for PR in the emerging media world, had been identified as being behind a fake Walmart Blog.

Edelman Chairman, Richard Edelman’s statement admitting the ‘error’ of having not disclosed the identity of the Walmart bloggers, doesn’t go far enough to tell us (a) how this happened, (b) what checks and balances are in place, assuming they have this, being who they are, to keep the ‘transparency’ flag flying.

That they support the Word of Mouth Marketing Association guidelines (Honesty of Relationship, Opinion and Identity) is great in the face of having egg on their face from several or the prominent media and PR organizations. Just to take up one WOMMA point, Honesty of Identity that says:

We do not blur identification in a manner that might confuse or mislead consumers as to the true identity of the individual with whom they are communicating, or instruct or imply that others should do so.

As Shel Holtz, observes,
it takes guts for a CEO to admit to a boo boo of this nature. I am certain
there are huge legal issues involving a PR company apologizing for something
they do on behalf of a company, so we may have to be patient for the details to
come out.  I would like to see Edelman use this to take the discussion of
transparency to a new dimension.

On a related note –of transparency– Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine has a long observation on how the Guardian is approaching it.

“what it means to run a newspaper along the sort of ethical
lines we tell everybody else to run their corporations.”

To a great extent, it’s not enough to practice what you preach. You need to fine tune the practice of what you preach if you are perceived as, or want to be the engine pulling the train. At this juncture, Edelman’s engine driver has hit the brakes; before the cars behind him begin to buckle, he’s gotta find ways of moving PR forward.

But there’s the other player in all of this: Walmart. How come it have not come out with a statement? Nothing here at Walmart Facts or on the news section of their main site. As a client, shouldn’t it bite the ‘transparency’ bullet as well? If it believed in the power of blogs for positive word of mouth at the outset (as the BusinessWeek article suggested) then the company should be concerned about not engaging the social media for damage control.

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Now here’s a move that’s bolder than I expected. Ford, on it’s Bold Moves site has a dealer talking about the company being "a huge ship that takes forever to turn" and a marketing manager prefacing at a presentation about low morale. Marketing Vox is also reporting how Henry Copeland of Blogads has called a new bactch of ads the ‘first Cluetrain ad.’

This spot opens with a spokesperson for the Rainforest Action Network, talking of Ford’s problem. She is followed by an ‘industry analyst’ and others who continue the unflattering view. Ok, so there is some optimism that follows, with talk about hydrogen fuel fleets and the environment. But it sure tells a more compelling story than conventional commercials that feature beauty shots of cars zipping through the countryside. The new beauty shots are gas stations with the price boards displaying high prices, belching smokestacks and ugly congested freeways.

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