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News & ArtsMonday, February 2, 2009
At Large Viral Marketing
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 10:48 AM
Fayetteville has a great big airport served by great big airplanes thanks to great big Wal-Mart, which is based in nearby Bentonville, Arkansas.
3
The green glowing and growing map was interesting. What would a similar map for Starbucks show? Oh, the airport you are referring to is Northwest Arkansas regional airport, is not in Fayetteville, and actually is on the small side. You still walk to the little planes that whisk you off to your connecting city. No Starbucks in sight, but lots of marketing materials for Wal-mart related business. Amazing.
5
It's not really much of an airport they have -- according to 2007 statistics, they had about 1.2 million passengers. Sea-Tac had 31.2 million, Portland had 14.6 million. Looking at their web page, all arrivals and departures seem to have 4-digit flight numbers, which would suggest that the airport is served almost entirely by regional/commuter carriers.
6
I've heard that 90% of Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart. Sure 'nuff. According to Google maps there's a Wal-Mart 14 miles north, 14 miles south and 14 miles west of my house in Wallingford. Fucking surrounded.
8
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10
Remember that yes Wal-Mart is huge and yes it sometimes uses its might to push around other buisness, but Wal-Mart is in many a small town and if they were not there, most of those jobs (albeit low paying) would not be there. Doesn't relieve their business practices burdens, but they do bring jobs to town that might not normally be there. Double edged sword to be sure.
jeff
jeff
11
1. Was that Hugo Weaving in The Matrix?
2. A Walmart store is to your local economy what a driftnet is to the ocean floor.
2. A Walmart store is to your local economy what a driftnet is to the ocean floor.
12
Wal-Mart is a nice place, very good. Not like virus at all, you find may good thing to buy there today. Why not go shop at Wal-Mart now?
14
@10
those low paying jobs usually come at the expense of most of the other retail jobs in town. the small Missouri town where my mother grew up in is like a case study: the old downtown is literally deserted. every small mom-and-pop store went out of business, leaving depressing antique stores that sell the furniture of the recently dead on every block.
While the massive Wal-Mart on the edge of town isn't solely to blame, the business model it epitomizes is. It has left most of middle America an ugly shithole. Amazing! People love it, though.
those low paying jobs usually come at the expense of most of the other retail jobs in town. the small Missouri town where my mother grew up in is like a case study: the old downtown is literally deserted. every small mom-and-pop store went out of business, leaving depressing antique stores that sell the furniture of the recently dead on every block.
While the massive Wal-Mart on the edge of town isn't solely to blame, the business model it epitomizes is. It has left most of middle America an ugly shithole. Amazing! People love it, though.
15
I've been through that airport twice, unfortunately. The building is about the size of a suburban high-school, and is decorated very much like an Ethan Allen showroom.
17
Nothing wrong with Walmart, just with peoples lack to respond to changing circumstances. Walmart uses scale to make things a lot cheaper and great marketing/data collection to do a lot more. Small businesses can't compete so they go under, those people need to learn new skills and get in an area they can compete, or go work for someone who had the foresight and ability to do that.
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