When analyzing this article through the lens of integrated marketing communications I realized that there was a glaring contradiction in Wal-Mart’s overall message. For a company to have effective IMC a company must deliver a clear, concise message to all brand contacts consistently over a period of time. Wal-Mart doesn’t accomplish this task by any stretch of the imagination. It is a well-known fact that Wal-mart employees are not financially secure, most make “less than $25,000 per year.” Now the boss is asking them to donate what little they have to help eachother out? What’s up with that?
At first glance you look at this article and you say “Wow look at how much that company really cares about it’s employees,” until you think about the situation and realize what is actually happening. The company isn’t donating their food, their money, their time or any of their resources to this drive, they’re asking their employees to do so when they have next to nothing to begin with. This really muddles the overall company message because they are essentially saying to their employees, we would like to help out but you earn what you earn. If you don’t like it and you can’t make ends meet, donate to each other to help one another out, while we sit back and pretend to care.
I consider Wal Mart's Thanksgiving food drive to be a “half-baked” corporate ploy, an effort to diminish the public outcry on how Wal-Mart employees are being treated. It is a multi-billion dollar company’s feeble attempt to boost their public perception by seemingly acting in good faith at the taxpayers expense while downplaying their social responsibility. Wal-Mart’s negligible wages force more and more employees to take advantage of government assistance costing taxpayers “$900,000 per year.” If Wal-Mart desired to truly make a difference they would cut their corporate dividends in order to pay their