Iffy?
Working Families for Wal-Mart front group[edit]
In the 2000s, Edelman created a
front group called the
Working Families for Wal-Mart, which said it was a
grassroots organization, but was actually funded by
Wal-Mart. It paid two bloggers to travel the country interviewing Wal-Mart employees, one of whom was a senior Edelman employee's sister. According to
The New Yorker, "everyone she talked to was delighted with Wal-Mart". In 2006,
BusinessWeek reported that the public relations effort, which was positioned as a grassroots blog, was actually paid for by Wal-Mart.
The New Yorker called it a "blatant example of
astroturfing".
[35]
E.ON Kingsnorth coal power station[edit]
In 2008 Edelman's work with
E.ON, which planned to build a coal power station at
Kingsnorth attracted protests at Edelman's UK headquarters.
[36] In 2009, to coincide with the weeklong "Climate Camp" range of protests, a group of naked protestors occupied Edelman's reception.
[37]
Keystone XL pipeline and climate change deniers[edit]
Edelman was commissioned by
TransCanada Corporation to run campaigns supporting the
Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed pipeline to carry tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf coast of
Texas.
[38] Edelman also developed a strategy for the proposed
Energy East pipeline intended to carry tar sands oil through Québec, en route to a deep water harbor at
Cacouna, Quebec for export abroad in supertankers and to refineries in New Brunswick. This resulted in a major controversy when documents leaked to
Greenpeace revealed that Edelman had made some unethical proposals to sway public opinion in favor of its client. TransCanada distanced itself from those proposals as soon as the "dirty tricks" were published in the press.
[39][40][41][42][43] In 2015, the firm announced that it would cease work for coal producers and climate change deniers.
[44]
News Corporation phone hacking scandal[edit]
Edelman provided crisis communications to
News Corporation during the
phone hacking scandal.
[45][46] Other clients have included
Vidal Sassoon,
Red Cross,
Cantor Fitzgerald,
[13] Royal Dutch Shell,
[47] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
[48] Starbucks,
[45] and the government of
Saudi Arabia.
[49] It has used
front groups to help the
American Petroleum Institute reduce the perceived environmental damage caused by oil companies.
[35]
Russia and Yukos[edit]
In June 2016, Edelman was hired by the International Centre for Legal Protection (ICLP), led by Andrey Kondakov, former director in the
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The company was hired to "turn the tide of public opinion" and "help influence U.S. opinion on a massive court verdict involving the oil giant Yukos."
[50]
Equifax privacy breach crisis control[edit]
Equifax hired Edelman for crisis control after the October 2017 privacy breach.
[51][52]
Geo Group private prison[edit]
Edelman supported private prison company
GEO Group and helped in "laundering the reputation of private US concentration camps" in July 2019.
[53] In May 2019, executives from the
Washington, DC office, including office president Lisa Ross and former Trump White House deputy press secretary,
Lindsay Walters, went to Florida to present the pitch.
[54] In June, when word spread across the company that the work was being pursued, debate sprang up on networking app
Fishbowl. The work was resigned by Edelman in July 2019 and announced during an all-hands meeting in Washington. On Fishbowl, an employee commented that the executives "took the opportunity to basically shame us for ruining the work for the company because they couldn’t trust us not to leak it to the press."
[54] Other employees on Fishbowl made similar comments.
[54]
The company's official response was that "Edelman takes on complex and diverse clients ... and ultimately decided not to proceed with this work."
[54] Edelman also refused to confirm they did similar work for another major private prison company,
CoreCivic.
[54]
Spiritual home for Blairites.