Wal-Mart Changes Slogan, Little Else (9/17/07)

Wal-Mart has received a lot of bad press over the last few years regarding the harm their business practices has done to employees and communities. Wal-Mart hasn't done anything to become a better corporate citizen, but it has unveiled a new "softer" ad campaign.

The new Wal-Mart campaign trades in the famous old "Always Low Prices" theme for a new "emotional" tag line of "Save Money. Live Better."

The new campaign is based on a Wal-Mart funded study that misleadingly claims Wal-Mart saved U.S. households $2,500 on average last year. The commercials are a bid to distract consumers from the more unsavory aspects of Wal-Mart, like falling wages, uninsured families, and closing community stores.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the claims of savings are on shaky ground.

The EPI calls the study "...deeply flawed. The statistical analysis generating this widely quoted figure fails the most rudimentary sensitivity checks used in good economic analysis, rendering its conclusions unreliable."

So while the slogan has changed, it's business as usual at Wal-Mart.