Edelman built a fake Walmart travel blog — the blogosphere called it a flog

On 27 September 2006 'Wal-Marting Across America' launched: a video diary of two 'average Americans', Laura and Jim, travelling the country in an RV, sleeping in Wal-Mart parking lots, relentlessly upbeat about the chain. It read like fan enthusiasm. In reality Edelman, Wal-Mart's PR firm, had designed the tour, and Working Families for Wal-Mart — a front group Edelman itself had created — paid for the RV, meals and expenses. The blog linked to the group but never disclosed that it was funding the trip.

BusinessWeek exposed the stunt in the week of 9 October, bloggers pounced, and the word 'flog' — a fake blog — entered the industry vocabulary. Jim Thresher turned out to be a Washington Post photographer, reprimanded by the Post for breaking its policy; Laura was a freelance writer whose brother worked at Edelman on the account. On 16 October Richard Edelman apologised on his own blog for his firm's 'fail[ure] to be transparent about the identity of two bloggers': 'I'm sorry we did this.'

The apology became part of the case study in itself: Edelman said he had waited to speak until he 'had all the facts', while bloggers kept adding facts of their own. The scandal is remembered as the moment astroturfing went mainstream — proof that undisclosed sponsorship could be detected within days, and that the cover costs more than the campaign.