19229119 Jovanna Marsella Sugianto
Astroturfing: Walmart Fake Blog Controversy
These days, many businesses focus on using User Generated Content (UGC) in their
digital marketing. According to Urrutia (2019), when it comes to performing buying
decisions, consumers have more probability of trusting the recommendations from friends
and family rather than brands. UGC can be included by posting products on social media,
giving reviews on the products, and other content that usually uses the audience to help
promote the products. However, many companies use these opportunities to give fake
reviews and testimonials to boost their UGC. This practice is known as astroturfing. One
example of astroturfing in marketing is the Walmart Fake Blog Controversy.
Walmart Fake Blog Controversy took place in 2006, with the emergence of a blog
named "Wal-marting Across America." According to Gogoi (2006), this blog mainly spoke
about a couple's adventure, Jim and Laura, going around the U.S. from Las Vegas to Georgia.
During these journeys, they often parked their car in the free parking area of Walmart and
then interviewed some of the staff. Most interviewees said they loved their jobs and were
deeply satisfied with their current working conditions (Gogoi, 2006; Skene, 2014). However,
Gogoi (2006) believed that the couple on the blog was speculated to be fiction. The lady was
recognized as the blog author, a freelance author, and a U.S. Treasury Department employee,
Laura St. Claire, while the guy is Jim Thresher, a photographer of the Washington Post. With
this exposure, it turned out that Working Families for Wal-Mart (WFWM) had paid the
couple for their travel expenses and the fee of writing this blog. According to Skene (2014),
WFWM is an organization launched by Elderman, Walmart's public relations firm, to
respond to the criticism from union-funded associations demanding an improvement of
Walmart's working environment, such as Walmart Watch and Wake Up Walmart. Therefore,
because of this fake blog controversy, Walmart and Edelman got criticism from the
audience.
Even though astroturfing is a practice of misuse of UGC, many firms still use
astroturfing as they believe that astroturfing can help boost the companies' product image and
promotions. According to Henrie and Gilde (2019), promoting the business interest is one of
the main goals of most astroturfing organizations. BusinessWeek (2006) found that during
that time, Walmart was quite famous for its notoriety as being tight with the employees'
earnings (as cited in Walmart Watch, n.d., p.1), which probably made employees not satisfied
with the working environments. Therefore, to boost the image and promote jobs at Walmart,
Walmart used astroturfing to boost the image of the working environment in Walmart. In
addition, with this goal, many people used this practice because, according to Mackie
(2009), the corresponding anonymity of the authority became one of the benefits of
astroturfing (as cited in Henrie & Gilde, 2019, p. 3). Walmart used the opportunity of
anonymity in the blog to avoid being exposed. Therefore, Claire created a fictional character
based on her and Thresher with simple and no-surname names, Laura and Jim. Even though
astroturfing brings benefits to companies, it still is malpractice in UGC, and therefore, once
being exposed that it was fake, it got backlash.
Both Walmart and Edelman got backlash from other people. Walmart did not
experience any significant backlash from this controversy. However, Edelman got most of the
heavy criticism since it was Walmart's public relations firm and the one behind Working
Families for Wal-Mart. Besides that, the CEO of Edelman also got criticized. According to
Rettberg (2014), Richard Edelman, the CEO of Edelman during the controversy happened,
was heavily criticized for sponsoring the blog since he is one of the influential members of
the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), which has often addressed the need
for honesty and transparency in this sort of marketing. However, he broke those principles in
real life by using astroturfing to give sponsors and permission to make the fake blog, which
would destroy the trust bond to the audience.
Therefore, to avoid this backlash, Walmart and Edelman could have used other
methods instead of astroturfing to promote the working conditions of Walmart. During the
controversy, Walmart has to fix its job environment reputations by improving the work
conditions, such as giving incentives, scholarships, employees' benefits, and training to
strengthen the bond between employees. Fortunately, current Walmart has done all these to
improve the employees' working conditions. According to Walmart (n.d.), its company has
given promotions to around 200,000 employees per year, done around 1 million training each
year, and given scholarships to the associates to complete their education. Meanwhile, for
Edelman, even though there is no clear information on whether Edelman still the public
relations firm of Walmart but, at that time, Edelman should have use methods other than
astroturfing. If I were in charge, as an Edelman staff, I would encourage the Walmart workers
to give honest reviews about their current job and give those reviews to Walmart so it could
increase the work environment based on the staff's comments. In addition, I would post the
staff's positive reviews on the Walmart Career's website. Besides that, I would push the
marketing of Walmart's employment by conducting an event for Walmart's staff and posting
the news on Walmart's website or social media that was used at that time.
To sum up, Walmart's fake blog controversy is one example of astroturfing due to the
desire to increase Walmarts' job environment image. The firm believed that it could replenish
Walmart's image as a happy and desirable workplace with the fake blog. However, with this
practice, it got heavy criticism from the audience, especially towards Edelman. Hence, it is
believed that Walmart and Edelman could have used other methods instead of astroturfing,
such as giving benefits to the employee to be promoted externally. Therefore, it is highly
recommended that people do not try to use astroturfing as an easy way to win over customers
and engage with the UGC because it can destroy the trust issue between the audience and the
company.
References
Gogoi, P. (2006, October 18). Wal-Mart vs. the blogosphere. NBCNews.com.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15319926.
Henrie, K., & Gilde, C. (2019). An Examination of the Impact of Astroturfing on
Nationalism: A Persuasion Knowledge Perspective. Social Sciences, 8(2), 38.
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8020038
Rettberg, J. W. (2014). Blogging: Digital Media and Society Series. Polity Press.
Skene, K. (2017, November 30). A PR Case Study: Wal-Marting Across America. News
Generation, Inc. http://newsgeneration.com/2014/04/04/pr-case-study-walmartingacross-america/.
Urrutia, K. (2019, April 16). Council Post: User-Generated Content As An Affordable And
Effective Marketing Strategy. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2019/04
/16/user-generated-content-as-an-affordable-and-effective-marketingstrategy/?sh=45a0148d3fb9.
Wal-Mart Watch. (n.d.). The Wal-Mart Fake Blog Controversy.
Walmart Store Jobs. Walmart Careers. (n.d.). https://careers.walmart.com/storesclubs/walmart-store-jobs.