Wal-Mart Aggressively Courts Mommy Bloggers — Commercial Alert

Wal-Mart Aggressively Courts Mommy Bloggers — Commercial Alert:
"Eleven Moms Weigh in on P&G, Coke, Campbell Brands

Over the weekend of Nov. 15-16, Katja Presnal was a key figure in the public flogging of Motrin and its parent Johnson & Johnson on Twitter, creating a YouTube video that showed dozens of tweets castigating its babywearing ad.

By Nov. 21, she was blogging in an entirely different way. Ms. Presnal was preparing a blog post in her role as one of Wal-Mart Stores’ Eleven Moms panel of mommy bloggers behind the planned Nov. 24 unveiling of “Salon Secret,” which turns out to be Procter & Gamble Co.’s Pantene.

The idea was to have the mommy bloggers, who had attended a trip to Wal-Mart’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters last month, be treated with an unnamed “salon brand,” to be revealed as Pantene. A sampling site for the launch notes that 70% of salon-brand users prefer the mystery brand.

Power of mommy bloggers
Ms. Presnal, who runs the Skimbaco.com online retail site and SkimbacoLifestyle blog, is a one-woman embodiment of the best and worst that mommy bloggers can offer marketers."