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Recent examples of misdirection
Techniques and examples of target-marketing, misinformation, and misdirection
Misinformation: Walmart Facing the largest class-action case
in the history of the United States (for discrimination against women),28
Walmart
sought to influence women’s perception of Walmart as women-friendly. Towards this objective, Walmart created dozens of opportunities to use Walmart funded non-profit organizations and the media to generate favorable news stories implying their business support of women. Walmart began by investing heavily through corporate sponsorships with women’s business groups and then used their financial leverage with these organizations to generate positive media stories about Walmart.
A recent example employed by Walmart was the creation of a report on the financial impact of women-owned small businesses in the United States. Simply restating data that had already been reported by the U.S. Census and the U.S. Small Business Administration, this report included only a narrow selection of information to paint a rosy picture of women in business.
By implying the discovery of new and important information, Walmart held a “Women’s Economic Summit” to release the report and use the Walmart name
in conjunction with the women’s groups and research organizations that it funds – securing business headlines and positioning WalMart as a friend of women-owned businesses.29
Walmart’s supplier diversity spending with women-owned firms is extremely small.
In May 2009, Walmart’s leadership promoted a press release congratulating themselves on the firm’s commitment to supplier diversity, stating, “In the midst of a struggling economy, where businesses across the country have been forced to close or drastically reduce capacity and workforce, Walmart increased its combined direct and second-tier spend to more than $8.1 billion with minority- and women-owned businesses.”30
In this same release, Walmart stated their direct spend with minority and women-owned firms was “more than $6 billion.” However, their public relations team (and the media) failed to report that Walmart’s total cost of goods sold within their stores (total Walmart revenues less operating, selling, general and administrative expenses) during this same time period was over $286.5 billion. Hence, Walmart spent only a paltry two percent of their entire purchasing for costs of goods sold in their stores with minority- and women-owned firms and over $280 billion from non-women-owned firms.31
The Women-Led EconomyTM
Changes Everything
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