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Wal-Mart Launches Employee Voter Drive: Activists Question Retailer's
Motives
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post
September 30, 2006 [back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. yesterday
launched a voter registration drive aimed at its 1.3 million U.S.
employees in what it describes as the largest such effort by a private
company. The kickoff was held in Iowa, a key battleground in the
upcoming midterm elections. Workers at Wal-Mart's roughly 3,800 other
facilities across the country also received registration forms
yesterday. Although the world's largest retailer said it does not want
to influence how its workers vote, David Tovar, director of media
relations, said the drive was prompted by recent criticism of the
company by politicians.
Wal-Mart workers "read the newspapers
and see the headlines, just like you and I do," Tovar said. "They
recognize there were some elected officials that were saying some things
that didn't really represent the company. They wanted to have an
opportunity to have their voice heard."
Wal-Mart is working with Democratic
strategist Charles Baker of the law firm DLA Piper and Republican
strategist Terry Nelson, founder of Crosslink Strategy, on what it has
dubbed the Voter Education Program. The company has prepaid postage for
voter registration forms in Iowa and several other states. It is also
allowing workers whose shifts do not give them three hours to visit the
polls to take paid time off to vote. Before the elections in 2004, they
received two hours of unpaid time off.
Wal-Mart sent letters to 18,000 Iowa
employees in August criticizing Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Joseph R.
Biden Jr. of Delaware and Govs. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Bill Richardson
of New Mexico -- all Democrats -- for participating in a bus tour
arranged by Wake Up Wal-Mart, which is funded by the United Food and
Commercial Workers International Union. Similar letters were sent to
workers in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
The bus tour was designed to attract
new members to Wake Up Wal-Mart and draw attention to the company's
health benefits package.
Labor groups have accused the retailer
of blocking employee attempts at unionizing. They also assert that
Wal-Mart runs small companies out of business, depresses wages and does
not provide adequate health coverage for its employees.
Wal-Mart Watch, which is backed by the
Service Employees International Union, said it supports the retailer's
voter drive but was still critical of its political efforts.
"Wal-Mart's employees realize that the
company's lobbyists don't represent their personal interests," spokesman
Nu Wexler said.
Some activist groups questioned the
retailer's motives, citing Wal-Mart's policy of banning voter
registration drives conducted by outside parties from its stores.
"If Wal-Mart is truly interested in
promoting a just democracy, then customers and employees should be
included in registration activities," said Edward A. Hailes Jr., senior
attorney with Advancement Project, a national civil rights group
organization that works on voting issues.
In the spring, volunteers with Project
Vote and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a
nonprofit group that has been critical of Wal-Mart, attempted to set up
voting drives at several Florida stores, said Brian Mellor, the
elections counsel for Project Vote. He said they were quickly asked to
leave.
Tovar said the company's blanket
policy bans such drives because it disrupts customers' shopping
experience but that it has made exceptions for some nonpartisan groups.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Next Year Only To Offer New Employees Lower-Premium Health
Plans With Higher Deductibles
MediLexicon
29 Sep 2006
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores will stop offering new
employees traditional low-deductible health plans beginning Jan. 1,
2007, and instead will offer new hires high-deductible plans with lower
premiums, the Washington Post reports. Under the revised health care
plan, employees will be able to purchase a plan that has a monthly
premium of $11 and a $1,000 deductible or a plan with a $17 premium and
a $3,000 deductible. Under the changes, the lowest monthly cost for an
employee and his or her spouse would be $38 with a $6,000 deductible (Mui/Joyce,
Washington Post, 9/27). One of the plans will allow workers to
contribute to a health savings account. Current employees still will be
able to renew their lower-deductible health plans, according to the
company (AP/Chicago Sun-Times, 9/27). Wal-Mart spokesperson Dan Fogleman
on Tuesday said that a review of the company's health benefit plans
showed that most employees opted for a package with a monthly premium of
between $70 and $100 with a $350 deductible, though more than half of
employees did not pay that much. Fogleman said, "We've done the math on
this, and we have a pretty good understanding of what this is going to
mean. Most associates are going to come out better on this." Fogleman
added that Wal-Mart provides health benefits to about 47% of its
workforce. However, the plan changes are "sparking fresh criticism over
whether the giant retailer is providing adequate coverage to its
workers," the Post reports. Wake-Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed group, said
the changes will force many Wal-Mart employees to seek public health
coverage. Paul Blank, campaign director for the group, said, "Wal-Mart
is cruelly hurting its employees, cutting health care options and
shifting costs on to the American taxpayer." Paul Fronstin, director of
health research and education at the Employee Benefit Research
Institute, said the changes appear to be "pretty standard." Fronstin
said, "There is always shifting going on, and it tends to be modest at
best" (Washington Post, 9/27).
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to
Trim Options for Health Coverage
By Kris Hudson
Wall Street Journal
September 29, 2006 [back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. next year will
curtail options it offers newly hired workers for health-care coverage,
promoting a low-premium, high-deductible plan. The retailer anticipates
its "Value Plan" will let employees with few health-care needs save
money through low premiums. Critics, however, argue the shift allows
Wal-Mart to cut its costs for health-care benefits and discourage
unhealthy people from seeking work at its stores.
Wal-Mart introduced the Value Plan
early this year. It allows employees to pay premiums as low as $11 a
month in some areas in exchange for a relatively high deductible of
$1,000. It also allows a given employee three visits to the doctor and
three prescriptions for generic drugs a year before the deductible kicks
in. It imposes no lifetime cap on coverage.
On Jan. 1, the Value Plan will become
the primary of three options available for Wal-Mart's new hires. Another
is a health-savings-account plan that gives employees a tax-free option
to set aside part of their own pay with supplements from Wal-Mart of as
much as $2,400 a year for use in paying medical expenses. In 16 states,
Wal-Mart also provides coverage through health-maintenance
organizations.
Employees hired this year and earlier
can continue to get their coverage from the retailer's standard plans.
Those plans require higher premiums than the Value Plan, but they offer
much lower deductibles. However, Wal-Mart will increase premiums on
those plans next year by an average of 8%. That compares with an average
increase of 7.7% in premiums for U.S. employer-sponsored plans in the
past year, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
In the U.S., Wal-Mart employs more
than 1.3 million store-level workers, of which roughly 46% are enrolled
in its health-care plans. The Bentonville, Ark., company has been dogged
for years by critics' allegations that it provides inadequate
health-care benefits.
Documents outlining the impending
health-benefit changes were obtained and distributed to the media by
anti-Wal-Mart group WakeUpWalMart.com. The group pointed out additional
price increases in Wal-Mart's health-care coverage for next year: In
addition to the Value Plan's $1,000 deductible, the new plan establishes
separate deductibles of $1,000 for inpatient hospital stays, $500 for
each outpatient surgical visit and $300 for pharmacy purchases.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
counters critics with voter registration
Reuters
Fri Sep 29, 2006
[back to top]
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, Sept 29
(Reuters) - Long criticized by union groups and some U.S. Democrats for
not providing employees with adequate pay or benefits, Wal-Mart on
Friday gave workers something else: voter registration cards.
The retailing giant kicked off a voter
registration drive in Iowa -- the state which hosts the first contest in
the presidential campaign -- and said it would give election information
to all of its 1.3 million employees before the Nov. 7 midterm vote.
About 30 Wal-Mart employees, most clad
in bright blue vests with the phrase "How may I help you?" printed in
white on their backs, were given registration forms after being led in
morning cheers at the West Des Moines Wal-Mart.
"It doesn't really cross my mind to go
register to vote," said 23-year-old Mike Leng, one of the Wal-Mart
employees who received the registration kit. "(This is) an opportunity
to voice my opinion."
While the retailer said it would not
push employees to support a particular party, Wal-Mart media relations
director David Tovar said some employees had been upset by a union-led
campaign against the company and wanted to counter the attacks.
A bus trip drawing support from scores
of big-name Democrats crisscrossed America this summer claiming
Wal-Mart, the country's biggest private-sector employer, provides
inadequate wages and health-care coverage while shipping new jobs
overseas.
It was launched by the UFCW grocery
workers union, which ended efforts to unionize the company last year.
Tovar said he believed Wal-Mart
workers upset with the campaign could affect the result in key states at
the midterm election, when control of Congress is at stake.
"In certain states where we have a lot
of associates -- which is a lot of states -- we think Wal-Mart
associates who are very passionate about the company can make a
difference in some of these elections," Tovar said in an interview.
Some of the closest races of the
midterm election are in Florida, where Wal-Mart has 100,000 employees,
Ohio, where it has 50,000 and Pennsylvania, where it has 47,000 workers.
Still, Wal-Mart workers who received
voter registration kits in West Des Moines were not universally
enthusiastic about the prospect of casting a ballot in November.
Armin Auskic, 33, who fled war-ravaged
Bosnia seven years ago and became a U.S. citizen in April 2005, has
never voted.
"I don't like politics," he said.
© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart in drive to persuade its 1.3m workers to vote
By Jonathan Birchall
Financial Times
Sept 29, 2006
[back to top]
Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, on
Friday launched a drive to encourage its 1.3m employees to register to
vote, in the biggest operation of its kind ever by a US private
employer.
The company has begun distributing
voter registration packages – including postage-paid application forms –
to more than 17,000 employees at its stores and warehouses in Iowa, with
other states due to follow.
The company has framed the initiative
as a public service effort, with Lee Scott, chief executive, saying on
Friday Wal-Mart was "eager to see our associates take a more dynamic
role in the electoral process".
But the registration drive also
highlights Wal-Mart's increasing engagement in politics, at a time when
its employment policies have been publicly criticised by some leading
Democrats, including several potential candidates for the party's
presidential nomination.
In August, Wal-Mart distributed a
letter to its employees in Iowa and three other states, highlighting
what it said were inaccuracies in criticism by Governor Tom Vilsack, as
well as Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana and Joseph Biden of Delaware and
New Mexico's governor Bill Richardson.
The letter encouraged employees to
talk to "friends, neighbours and family about the good that Wal-Mart
does". It also promised that the company would "keep you informed about
what these political candidates are saying about your company while on
the campaign trail".
Wal-Mart has also highlighted the
significant number of its employees in both swing states.
In Ohio its 50,000 workers represent
roughly 1 per cent of voters in the 2004 presidential election – enough
to be a factor in the current Senate battle between Sherrod Brown – a
Wal-Mart critic – and Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent. Wal-Mart's
political action committee is also one of the largest corporate donors
to Mr DeWine's campaign.
Wal-Mart is the largest single
corporate donor to the this year's congressional campaigns, having given
$1.9m (€1.5m, £1.3m), with roughly two-thirds going to Republican
candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart tracks shoppers
and sales
by Will Hadfield
ComputerWeekly.com
Friday 29 September 2006
[back to top]
Wal-Mart is looking to deploy an IT
system that tracks shoppers' progress around its stores and compares
their movements to actual sales.
The world’s largest retailer could use
the system to calculate “audience ratings” for the products on its
shelves. Armed with this data, store planners would be able to assess
the effectiveness of in-store promotions.
Wal-Mart hopes that the system will
enable it to attract more advertising money to its in-store promotions.
The system,called Prism, was developed by a consortium made up of
retailers and large suppliers.
Infra-red beams are used to track
shoppers’ movements around the store. Prism then correlates shoppers’
movements with actual sales data.
The Prism consortium is made up of
Coca-cola, Kelloggs, Kroger, Procter & Gamble, Walgreens and Walt
Disney.
It has undertaken a month-long pilot
study in 10 US stores, and plans to attract more retailers and suppliers
to the consortium.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
flexes DVD muscle over iTunes profits
A slice of Apple's
pie
By MICHAEL LEARMONTH
Thurs., Sep. 28, 2006
[back to top]
Apple and Wal-Mart are in discussions
over an alliance that could allow the giant retailer to profit from
iTunes video downloads, which have been a source of great tension
between Hollywood and the retailer in recent months. A deal could take
the form of a digital download "coupon" that would allow consumers to
buy movies, TV shows or music on iTunes with Apple paying the retail
giant a percentage of the proceeds, one industry insider said.
What's in it for Apple? Since studios
(except for Disney, of course) have so far turned a cold shoulder to
iTunes because of Wal-Mart's demands, the computer giant would then gain
access to titles from every major.
Wal-Mart is one of the nation's
biggest sellers of iPods.
Apple does sell gift cards through
some other retailers such as Best Buy, Target and Amazon.com, but not at
Wal-Mart.
Talks are in early stages and may not
result in any deal.
But they do appear to mark a thawing
of relations between allies Disney and Apple, which struck a download
deal in August, and Wal-Mart.
The giant retailer warned Hollywood
over the summer that it expects to be a major player in the evolution of
the digital marketplace, and that studios mustn't undercut the price of
DVDs in its stores with product sold on iTunes.
Wal-Mart didn't return calls and Apple
declined to comment.
Disney so far is the sole studio in a
deal with Apple, allowing Steve Jobs' company to buy new movie releases
for about $3 less than the wholesale price charged to Wal-Mart.
Others studios balked, fearing to
alienate their biggest customer.
Subsequently, Apple CEO Steve Jobs,
who is also a board member and major shareholder of Disney, is said to
have personally reached out to Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, who badly
wants to get into the digital film biz.
Hollywood has been closely watching
Disney's relationship with Wal-Mart in the wake of the deal. When
Wal-Mart caught wind of talks between the studios and Apple, it
threatened to cut its order of "High School Musical" over the summer.
Disney CEO Bob Iger did the deal with
Jobs anyway, and the rest of Hollywood has been watching to see if and
when the other shoe drops.
So far, to the surprise of many, it
hasn't.
Instead of cutting orders and slashing
shelf space, Wal-Mart has apparently ordered a healthy 49,000 copies of
Pixar's "Cars." It will sell "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's
Chest" for $12.99, meaning it will take a hefty loss on each DVD to
drive foot traffic in stores.
Studio sources say the rest of the
majors are very close to joining Disney in a deal with Apple but are
holding off until the end of the key fourth quarter, when half of all
DVD sales occur.
An alliance between Apple and Wal-Mart
would demonstrate how all elements of the entertainment food chain are
struggling to get ahead of the curve.
Studios are trying to calculate how
much longer DVD sales -- 40% of which go through Wal-Mart -- will be a
cornerstone of their business. So, too, is Wal-Mart.
The retailer is furthermore trying to
figure out how to translate its enormous foot traffic into the digital
biz that entertainment is becoming.
Tensions peaked over the summer as
Wal-Mart movies and music veep David Porter paid a call to the studios
as they talked with Apple's iTunes.
As late as July, three other studios
were planning to join Disney in inking an iTunes pact that would allow
the Apple service to buy new releases for $14.50 vs. the $17 the studios
typically charge Wal-Mart for a new release.
Jobs, who personally made the sales
pitch to the studios, insisted on passing a lower price on to consumers
since the cost of producing and shipping a DVD was taken out of the
equation.
Wal-Mart also made it clear to the
studios that if they did a deal with iTunes, it expected the same terms
for its own download business, which is under development.
"Porter came in and said if you're
going to play this game, we want the same terms as iTunes," said a
source who attended one of the meetings.
Wal-Mart's demand was enough to
shatter a planned alliance among Fox, Universal and Lionsgate to join
Disney in supplying films to iTunes.
Fox, which manages the DVD category
for Wal-Mart, had a verbal agreement with Apple requiring that it be
joined by two others.
U pulled out of the deal first, with
the other non-Disney studios following suit.
Paramount balked at the idea of doing
an iTunes deal early on, in large part because of DreamWorks Animation
chief Jeffrey Katzenberg's close ties to Bentonville and the brewing
management chaos at Viacom.
With no back catalog and a stream of
kid-oriented pictures, DreamWorks Animation is extremely reliant on
Wal-Mart, which accounts for close to 50% of its DVD sales.
Unlike the recording biz, which
watched its sales plummet due to downloads, the DVD business is still
relatively healthy and remains a predictable source of profit for the
studios.
But both the studios and retailers
such as Wal-Mart are watching closely for signs of a dropoff; no one
wants to be caught flat-footed.
At some point, however, studios know
they will have to undergo a transition as the homevid market transforms
from the production, sales and marketing of a packaged good --the DVD --
into the sale of a digital product, perhaps in the form of a
subscription business.
But studios don't want to hand digital
sales over to Apple in the way that the record labels did a few years
ago -- a move that took away much of their power to set pricing in the
marketplace.
Wal-Mart, meanwhile, has some angst
about a falloff in DVD sales as well. Customers who throw a disc in
their shopping carts spend an average of $75 per trip to the store --
far more than those who don't pick up a DVD.
[back to top]
Koç
Holding denies reports on sale of Migros to Wal-Mart
turkishdailynews.com
Thursday, September 28, 2006
[back to top]
ISTANBUL Koç Holding denied Tuesday's
media reports claiming that Koç Holding, owner of retail chain Migros,
was negotiating with Wal-Mart for the sale of Migros shares.
Media reports on the sale of Migros
shares to Wal-Mart were refuted in a Koç Group statement sent to the
Istanbul Stock Exchange (IMKB) on Wednesday. “Media reports on plans to
sell shares of Migros to Wal-Mart are not true. Consequently, we are not
in search of a financial consultant for such an operation,” said the
statement.
Referans business daily reported on
Tuesday that the Koç Group planned to sell Migros to Wal-Mart. It was
reported that Wal-Mart and Koç had negotiated over the sale of Migros
about one-and-a-half years ago, when Wal-Mart representatives had
indicated they would be ready to buy Migros if the retail chain expanded
further.
Now that Migros has purchased and
incorporated another retail chain, Tansaş, last year, Migros' sale
turnover in the first six months this year reached YTL 2 billion. The
current market value of Migros is estimated to be around $1.5 billion.
© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
finds more violations at foreign plants
The Associated Press
September 28, 2006
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores has reported finding a
higher rate of severe violations at foreign factories last year as it
stepped up inspections for labor and environmental standards in more
than 60 countries where it buys clothes, toys, shoes and other products.
"In 2005, we audited more factories
than any other company in the world, performing more than 13,600 initial
and follow-up audits of 7,200 supplier factories," the report said.
Twenty-three factories were cut off
from Wal-Mart's business for repeated violations, a sharp decline from
1,200 in 2004. But Wal-Mart partly attributed the decrease to changes in
its auditing rules and said that it expected the number to increase
again this year. The findings are in the company's "2005 Report on
Ethical Sourcing," which Wal- Mart posted on its Web site last week,
said a spokeswoman, Beth Keck.
Union-backed critics said the results
showed that Wal-Mart's pledges to use inspections to improve conditions
at foreign factories in Asia, Central America and elsewhere were ringing
hollow.
"Wal-Mart is ignoring the crux of the
problem, which is that they are paying their suppliers too little to
meet even minimal standards," said Nu Wexler, a spokesman for Wal-Mart
Watch.
Inspectors found moderate to severe
violations at 89 percent of factories, up from 79 percent in 2004.
Wexler said that finding was an indictment of Wal- Mart's ethics
program.
The report said that 80 percent of
inspections were announced in advance. Wal-Mart said the worsened
showing was due to more vigorous inspections, including more surprise
visits, and stricter standards.
Wal-Mart says it uses the findings to
encourage factory owners to improve conditions. If violations are found,
inspectors give a list to the owners and return for an another audit.
Repeated violations, as well as grave
problems like using underage or prison labor, can lead to being barred
from selling to Wal-Mart for up to one year.
Wal-Mart is also the target of a U.S.
lawsuit seeking class-action status for factory workers in Bangladesh,
China, Indonesia, Nicaragua and Swaziland.
In 2005, Wal-Mart's inspectors
reported "high-risk" violations at 52 percent of those factories,
compared with 36 percent in 2004.
Medium-risk violations were reported
at 37 percent of plants, down from 43 percent the year before. Only 10
percent of factories were found to have no violations or only minor
ones, compared with 21 percent in 2004.
"Several consistently found serious
violations at the factory level include problems with payment of
overtime compensation, coaching of workers for worker interviews, and
the use of double-books to hide the true numbers of hours worked or
wages/benefits paid," the report said.
Wal-Mart said that it gave companies a
chance by wiping their pre-2005 records clean.
Wal-Mart Stores has reported finding a
higher rate of severe violations at foreign factories last year as it
stepped up inspections for labor and environmental standards in more
than 60 countries where it buys clothes, toys, shoes and other products.
"In 2005, we audited more factories
than any other company in the world, performing more than 13,600 initial
and follow-up audits of 7,200 supplier factories," the report said.
Twenty-three factories were cut off
from Wal-Mart's business for repeated violations, a sharp decline from
1,200 in 2004. But Wal-Mart partly attributed the decrease to changes in
its auditing rules and said that it expected the number to increase
again this year. The findings are in the company's "2005 Report on
Ethical Sourcing," which Wal- Mart posted on its Web site last week,
said a spokeswoman, Beth Keck.
Union-backed critics said the results
showed that Wal-Mart's pledges to use inspections to improve conditions
at foreign factories in Asia, Central America and elsewhere were ringing
hollow.
"Wal-Mart is ignoring the crux of the
problem, which is that they are paying their suppliers too little to
meet even minimal standards," said Nu Wexler, a spokesman for Wal-Mart
Watch.
Inspectors found moderate to severe
violations at 89 percent of factories, up from 79 percent in 2004.
Wexler said that finding was an indictment of Wal- Mart's ethics
program.
The report said that 80 percent of
inspections were announced in advance. Wal-Mart said the worsened
showing was due to more vigorous inspections, including more surprise
visits, and stricter standards.
Wal-Mart says it uses the findings to
encourage factory owners to improve conditions. If violations are found,
inspectors give a list to the owners and return for an another audit.
Repeated violations, as well as grave
problems like using underage or prison labor, can lead to being barred
from selling to Wal-Mart for up to one year.
Wal-Mart is also the target of a U.S.
lawsuit seeking class-action status for factory workers in Bangladesh,
China, Indonesia, Nicaragua and Swaziland.
In 2005, Wal-Mart's inspectors
reported "high-risk" violations at 52 percent of those factories,
compared with 36 percent in 2004.
Medium-risk violations were reported
at 37 percent of plants, down from 43 percent the year before. Only 10
percent of factories were found to have no violations or only minor
ones, compared with 21 percent in 2004.
"Several consistently found serious
violations at the factory level include problems with payment of
overtime compensation, coaching of workers for worker interviews, and
the use of double-books to hide the true numbers of hours worked or
wages/benefits paid," the report said.
Wal-Mart said that it gave companies a
chance by wiping their pre-2005 records clean.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to
install shopper ratings device
By Doug Cameron
Chicago Financial Times
Sept 28, 2006
[back to top]
Wal-Mart may look at revamping its
store lay-outs using a new electronic system to measure customer traffic
and generate television-style "audience ratings" for products on its
shelves.
The world's largest retailer said the
new system, unveiled in Chicago on Wednesday, could also boost
operational efficiency and trigger a shift in marketing expenditure
among competing media at a time when the industry continues to grapple
with the impact of the internet on traditional channels such as
television and magazines.
"I do think a lot of marketing
resources are up for grabs," said Stephen Quinn, Wal-Mart's senior
vice-president marketing, following the launch of the Prism system,
developed over the past year by a consortium of retailers and consumer
goods manufacturers including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and 3M. Mr
Quinn told the FT that the system could trigger "a big change in our
business model" by providing information on consumer behaviour, allowing
it to redesign stores, alter product displays and improve customer
flows.
"There are big gaps in the
understanding of what drives [customers] to make their decision," he
said. "Prism can be a major determinant of store lay-outs." The system
uses infra-red beams to track shoppers' movements and correlate them
with actual sales data, producing what its proponents claim is the first
scientific metric for the effectiveness of in-store sales tools such as
shelf location and promotional displays.
"Without the metric, the importance
placed on in-store marketing is low," said Laura Desmond, chief
executive for the Americas at Starcom MediaVest, a unit of Publicis, the
French marketing and communications group. Ms Desmond declined to
predict how in-store marketing spending could grow, but called Prism a
"game changing" move to target consumers based on shopping habits rather
than demographics.
"This is huge for our industry," added
Jim Stengel, global marketing officer at P&G, which is viewed as both
the largest and most influential advertiser in the world. Mr Stengel had
castigated the advertising industry in a landmark 2004 speech for its
lack of innovation, and yesterday des-cribed Prism as the type of
advance he was seeking.
"The store is the moment of truth," he
said. "We will now be able to measure consumer 'reach' with far better
accuracy."
The Prism consortium plans to build on
the results of a month-long pilot study in 10 US stores by recruiting
more retailers and manufacturers. Peter Hoyt, executive director for the
In-Store Marketing Institute, said it has started talks with companies
such as Nielsen to roll out a ratings system in the future for products
and stores based on the data collected by an expanded system.
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Doesn't
Discount Politicians
No rollback here:
The No. 1 retailer has ramped up political contributions—especially at
state and local levels
By Pallavi Gogoi
BusinessWeek.com
SEPTEMBER 28, 2006
[back to top]
California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger has legions of close friends, collected over decades as a
Hollywood box office draw and rising political star. Yet few may
consider him as dear as Wal-Mart Stores (WMT ), which gave the
Republican governor $22,300 on May 15, and earlier contributed $200,000
for initiatives Schwarzenegger had supported. In addition, the company
has given $300,000 to the state GOP and additional funds to local
politicians, making California the biggest recipient of Wal-Mart's
political largesse.
California is just one of the places
where local politicians are benefiting from Wal-Mart's growing interest
in state affairs. Over the past four election cycles, the giant retailer
has been steadily boosting its contributions to state and local
politicians, just as such politicians have been taking on bigger roles
in deciding key issues concerning the company's operations, from the
local minimum wage and required health-care benefits to zoning for
big-box retailers. Money has gone to everyone from Schwarzenegger and
New York gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer to Maryland Governor
Robert Ehrlich and Illinois state Senate President Emil Jones Jr.
RAMPING UP. Wal-Mart gave a total of
$326,875 in the 2000 election cycle, $431,017 in 2002, and $857,179 in
2004, according to research by The Institute on Money in State Politics,
a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization based in Helena, Mont.
For the 2006 election cycle, the company has given $644,655 so far and
seems to be on track to hit a record for political contributions.
"They've gone from zero to warp speed
in political giving all across the board," says Bruce Freed, co-director
of the Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit group that
tracks corporate political spending. The totals include only direct
contributions to politicians and political parties. Adding in money for
ballot initiatives and other local issues brings the total of Wal-Mart
state giving so far this cycle to $1.25 million.
Wal-Mart says it's become necessary to
step up its contributions. For two decades it largely shunned politics
because company founder Sam Walton didn't believe such activities
benefited his customers. In fact, Wal-Mart didn't hire any lobbyists or
establish any political action committees until 1998.
NO LONGER ON SIDELINES. But that
reticence, the company now says, has allowed critics to launch
unilateral attacks and set the agenda on a number of issues. "For years
we didn't participate—to our detriment," says company spokesman John
Simley. "Now we're participating in the same political process as any
citizen, in this case a corporate citizen."
Simley says contributions are now a
carefully considered component of Wal-Mart's business strategy. "The
process that we use to choose to whom we contribute has to do with the
voting record and position of each official," he says. "We look at their
records on anything that's relevant to our business, like trade, taxes,
legislation related to pharmacy and grocery, and we also consider the
magnitude of our presence in the districts they represent."
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