Richard Edelman calls…

This is the same Edelman that does Microsoft’s Xbox PR, right? I work with them for my video games site and don’t have any complaints.

Richard: Yup, one and the same.

Thank goodness. I would hate for this to become another way to demean the profession he is in.

When you screw up you fess up, and Richard has done that. I’m satisfied, albeit disappointed to see a leader stumble this way. And while it seemed to take forever to get a response, anyone whose been in the PR crisis mode knows it takes time to get all the facts together.

But saying you’re sorry doesn’t make it go away. For a while at least folks will be questioning the authenticity and the motivation of every blogger.

Wow, pulling a Jim Baker, eh?

Heh, apologize after the fact, call up a few bloggers, and all sins are forgiven, in fact might be more loved, as you too, are now “human”. You’d a thought they’d known better in the first place, being that they are the advocate preachers for that “way of life”. That’s what we call hypocrisy.

But Walmart hip? Really, I mean what planet are they on? Some quasi-senior citizens on an RV tour to Walmart Parking Lots (RV? I mean, that’s Griswaldish and bad Robin Williams movie material). It was a bad idea to begin with, and worse than poorly executed. The blog was worse than Press Releasey, it was all the gummy over-sweet candy corn, gawd really. I mean it was fake 2,000 miles away.

Learn all the facts? Hahah, you do know, that’s code for ‘wait until we have the spin doctoring all hammered out’. The facts were obvious enough for anyone to see.

Isn’t allowable behavior? So so naive…it’s only unallowable when you get caught.

But as with all this ‘conversational marketing rot’ it’s just advertising, all manufactured anyways, bloggers have bias’ too. Caveat Emptor. If a good product, it can work. But never try and be something you aren’t, it will only ring hollow. Know your market…

Moral of the story: When caught, go flagellant…doing Geisslerlieder blogger chants.

Richard is one of the straightest, most no-nonsense people you’ll ever encounter. He does more than anyone can imagine to change the reality and perception of his industry.

BTW, he’s not the founder. His still active father, Dan, is that.

That’s enough BOGUism that my ass hurts. There was nothing wrong. But now the blogging community has to take it up the ass? Ridiculous!

The campaign was a terrible idea even if they’d made the correct disclosures. In everything Edelman and Wal-Mart have done, they seem to be bringing tired old school tactics to a new medium. Embracing the technology but not the spirit behind it.

You know what? I’m the only big RVer I bet that is even aware of this. I knew from the outset that Walmart was involved. I was acting ignorant, like the bloggers pretend. This is stupid.

Christopher: personally if I ever screw up I hope people forgive me, especially after I recognize that a mistake has been made and I’ve apologized for it and made strides to make sure it never happens again.

@13 We forgive you every day, Robert

For that matter, they still haven’t really come clean. The last post on the blog still says that it was their idea.

That’s bogus. The woman is related to an Edelman employee. It was an Edelmen project from the very beginning, and the whole thing was planned and paid for by the agency.

This “it was my idea and I asked my brother at Edelman” crap is so much hogwash.

Also, this is anything but an isolated incident: Edelman is also running the ‘paidcritics.com’ weblog, which also purports to be some kind of grassroots site. Ironically, the walmartingacrossamerica.com, forwalmart.com, and paidcritics.com sites should all be labelled ‘paid supporters’, as the whole thing is nothing but a coordinated astroturf campaign.

to state that they were not transparent really does not go far enough in admitting their sleazy deceptive fabrication.

Mr. Edelman took responsibility for the flog fiasco, however I see no apology.

Are they taking responsibility for orchestrating a deceptive campaign to make a Wal-Mart look good, by pretending this was a simple blog about a simple american couple on a fun-filled travelin adventure across the U.S. in an R.V., (apple pie, RV’in, and WalMart!)? Or are they taking responsibility for getting caught trying to pull this off? Or are they claiming they didn’t know it was going to be a deceptive campaign, and someone else is really to blame, but they are taking responsibility? Or are they claiming they just didn’t think there was anything intentionally deceptive about it, except they could have been a bit more “transparent” in how they did it?

Peter: he apologized on the phone.

@20 On what phone? your phone? what good does that do? That was a private apology that you basically decided to share, I’m assuming with his blessing. Is he opposed to apologizing publically?

The phone call was for the record and was reportable, which means it happened in public the same as if he posted it on his blog. Or, the same way as if George Bush told a reporter something.

The thing is this is more a pattern than isolated instance, and if you look at their roster, by my count they have tons to “apologize” for. But basically really, the only real fault be the bloggers for actually buying into the Rubelish song and dance, wool over your eyes. They are what they are, PR and Advertising. If it doesn’t exist, make it up, hardly unique, Crispin and Fallon had done/and do similar, the only difference is that they pretended to be real. Advertising is never real, it paints a picture, flags up an image. And as the cover-up is sometimes worse than the crime, the real sin was not the fakeness per se, rather the hypocrisy.

But all in all, since it was so obviously a trainwreck from the outset, the mere fact that they didn’t see it coming, questions their professional judgement.

Since I mentioned Xbox PR earlier and you (Robert) said to contact you in your comments rather than email, I’m going off topic. My video games site just (minutes ago) launched our vidcast. The first episode is on Rockstar’s Table Tennis for the Xbox 360, so I thought you might be interested. The video is available here: http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7060

There is more 360 content (and other systems) on the way.

Richard, that is awesome!

Christopher,
I must take exception at your very general statement:

> They are what they are, PR and Avertising. If it
> does not exist, make it up. Hardly unique

It would be too easy for me to chip in against Edelman, as they are a competitor, and in this case I think they’ve done the right thing in owning up.

I will say, however, I wish there were MORE PR professionals that realized that helping clients dealing with blogs it’s not about using Traditional Media techniques here.

I preach about it in my seminars. I write about it. I can only hope clients realize soon that the other approach is “obviously a trainwreck from the outset”.

But it may take a while.