Walmart and Why We Are All Reputation Managers
Someone was in a Walmart in Louisiana, and took a picture of a black and white Barbie, the exact same Barbie save for skin tone, sitting side by side on the shelf. The black Barbie was cheaper than the white Barbie.
The photo found its way to a humor website, then to a Latino website, and ultimately, into an ABC News report among others, then cycled back into the blogosphere.
I don’t believe for a second there was a sinister motivation on Walmart’s part. ABC had comment from experts that feel the same. I, like them, think it was just a stupid mistake. Perhaps “smart business,” based on very business-y calculations – inventory, demand, pricing. But not smart business – boneheaded, really – in that it ignored what a customer might think, how it might be perceived, and the challenges facing Walmart’s reputation in general.
Two things are salient here.
One is that social media and mainstream news are increasingly not separate things. It isn’t breaking news, but a customer with a cell phone camera can imperil your reputation. Have you ever watched the news – be it CNN or MSNBC or Fox – in the middle of the day? It’s dotted with reporting , a term I use loosely here, on what a celebrity said on Twitter or what video is ripping hot on YouTube. We have to consider this and think more critically.
The other is the sometimes yawning gap between intention and perception. That’s where reputation much of the time lives. The spokesperson for Walmart said “Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing.” No question, makes sense, perfectly reasonable. But I’m sure they understand why in this particular case that’s not the whole story.
Reputation managers must advocate to their company or their client that we are all communicators now, like it or not, and we need to take our thinking one or two steps beyond our job description. Of course, with 20/20 hindsight, an inventory or pricing manager should have recognized the problem here.
We should try for the foresight.
Mike Sacks can be reached at msacks@mww.com.
