Spinning Wal-Mart

Retailer, union activists wage high-stakes PR battle



When it comes to peddling pickles and pants, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. knows just what to do: Cut costs and pass along the savings. But the world's largest retailer is facing a trickier marketing challenge as it tries to sell its political agenda to lawmakers, regulators and voters.

Wal-Mart, whose sales have flattened this year, needs their support to start growing again. It must defeat legislation designed to drive up its employees' wages and benefits, and it must win governmental permission to open big-box stores in crowded cities and enter the banking industry. With its future hinging on its political savvy, Wal-Mart decided last December to launch a "grass-roots" campaign, Working Families for Wal-Mart, to drum up support. But again and again, WFWM's public relations efforts backfired in 2006.

Exhibit A: Civil rights icon Andrew Young agreed to serve as the campaign's public face. But just a few months into the job, he abruptly resigned after making ethnically insensitive comments.

Exhibit B: Top-notch political strategist Terry Nelson was hired to guide the campaign. But he resigned shortly after his consulting firm was linked to a Tennessee Senate campaign ad that many deemed racist.

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