Wal-Mart Frames The Message To Perfection

Cal Berkeley linguist, George Lakoff, talks eloquently about how politicians frame their messaging to achieve intended results. Those of us in the ad biz also know a little something about the practice of framing.
For a great example of framing, let’s look at Wal-Mart. The world’s largest retailer is running a documentary-style TV spot right now that zooms in on Gastonia, NC. In the spot we hear from local merchants ecstatic about all the traffic the local Wal-Mart store generates for their businesses, which happen to be located directly in the path of said traffic. If this argument is to be believed, Wal-Mart is good for small town America, for it throws off residual income to any and all in its path like a moneyed tornado.

But we never hear from the merchants who have long made up the town center. How do they feel about losing income to the low-priced giant on the periphery? Wal-Mart knows precisely how they feel, which is why they created the spot–to fight the growing community-level resistance to their never ending expansion.