Leclerc - the blogger as corporate crusader
Michel Edouard Leclerc, chief executive of French supermarket Leclerc launch on May 22nd 2006 a price comparison website quiestlemoinscher.com (”who’s cheapest?”). Last Wednesday (7th June) a the commercial court of Paris, prompted by competitors (chiefly Carrefour) forced Leclerc to withdraw the site, citing a lack of transparency. Leclerc says he will be back.
Leclerc writes up all his marketing initiatives on his website “De quoi je me mele”, which is both a pun on his initials M.E.L. and means “the things I get up to” (lit. “the things I get mixed up in”).
He calls it a “tribune” means probably translates best as “soapbox” or “platform”. (The blog is to be found here).
Leclerc (above) has taken an original approach to corporate communication and how the web can be used. Leclerci’s rubrick for the website reads as follows:
Imagine an entrepreneur who has ideas and is not afraid to express them. The mainstream media interview him about his company’s results and he becomes the man to talk to for his whole business sector - distribution.
But the way mainstream media treats news make it less and less easy to express ideas or develop a position. You only get three minutes to deal with the problem of GM foods or a few lines in the press on [the] buying power [of supermarkets]. There are subjects that can’t be covered within what can be said in an advertisement, a sloganeering headline or a shock photo. And the absence of dialogue is more frustrating still.
The Internet has opened up new possibilities for the exchange of information in this area and I want to explore them. This is why I have opened [this website] in order to let people who are interested find out more and give their own views.
Topics of discussion on the website include globalisation, pollution from plastic bags (Leclerc banned them in 1995) GM foods. And Leclerc is at or close to the top of Google results in most of these topics. His website has allowed him to take thought leadership in the sector. This approach would not suit everyone - it is probably closest in style to Richard Branson or Stelios in the UK - but it takes on the key strengths of the Internet for communicators, the ability to set an agenda.
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