Mike Rowe, the popular host of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel and frequent voice behind ads for Ford, Caterpillar, Motorola, and Lee’s Jeans, learned how thin his popularity is among some of his fans when he touched the “third rail” of retailing: Walmart.
In his voiceover of Walmart’s ad appearing during the Olympics, Rowe announces the retail giant’s plans to buy $250 billion worth of American merchandise over the next 10 years to put up for sale in its stores. What could be wrong with that?
Last Sunday Rowe spent most of his day responding to those who found lots of things wrong with that:
Kevin: Walmart is the last [company] I would ever think you would do anything for! Why?
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Rowe: That’s easy. Walmart has committed to purchase 250 billion dollars of American made products over the next decade. In essence, that’s a purchase order made out to the USA for a quarter of a trillion dollars. That means dozens of American factories are going to reopen all over the country. Millions of dollars will pour straight into local economies, and hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing positions will need to be filled…. Isn’t this the kind of initiative we can all get behind?
Walmart, the largest retailer on the planet, with more than two million employees working in over 11,000 stores generating gross revenues approaching half a trillion dollars annually, got there by finding out what customers wanted to buy and then offering it to them at competitive prices. There is only one possible way Walmart can make such a promise: that American manufacturers will offer the best deals to Walmart’s customers. Rowe spent his Sunday afternoon articulating that simple fact to his naysayers:
Romeapple: It’s hypocrisy. Walmart’s products are all made in China. Walmart contributes to those empty [American] factories. What’s so “powerful” about an ad that makes absolutely no sense?
Rowe: That’s not entirely accurate, Romeapple. There’s a lot of merchandise currently in Walmart that’s manufactured right here in the USA…. But let’s assume … that Walmart did get every single item from China. Wouldn’t you like to see that change? Watch the ad again. Walmart is promising to buy 250 billion dollars of American made stuff and put it on their shelves. Whatever else you might think of the company, can you really root against an initiative like that?
Let me ask it another way. Do you really think America has any hope of reinvigorating our manufacturing base without support from the biggest retailer in the world?
Rowe is behind the curve here, but makes the valid point that Walmart swings a large hammer. According to a report from the Institute for Supply Management released in January, American factory purchasing managers said new orders for goods were the highest since April 2010. Walmart is likely turning a simple fact of life — jobs are coming back to America — into a press release.
Date: 12 February 2014