For over a month, I have been blogging here about Hurricane Katrina, urging private companies to do more to get critical aid into the area. For the most part, companies have responded the way we PR types usually do: with vague statements that sound positive but reveal absolutely nothing. You know what I am talking about: "We are doing everything possible to assist...." -- without any specifics whatsoever.

Until recently, I felt the same way about Wal-Mart's responses to criticism about discriminatory hiring and advancement practices. No sooner were charges filed than we saw ads with female and minority Wal-Mart employees extolling the praises of the company. None of those ads seemed authentic to me. Just more PR spin.

Then came Hurricane Katrina. While FEMA waited for the storm in D.C., Wal-Mart's business continuity chief, Jason Jackson, set-up an emergency command center for the company and began stockpiling supplies near the Gulf Coast. After Katrina hit, Wal-Mart -- not FEMA -- was the first provider on the scene with relief supplies.

The Wall Street Journal reported, "Wal-Mart frequently beat FEMA by days in getting trucks filled with emergency supplies to relief workers and citizens whose lives were upended by the storm." The first water to reach the stranded people at the Superdome in New Orleans came out of Wal-Mart trucks.

About a week after Katrina, I slipped into New Orleans with a relief truck of my own. As I drove down Convention Center Blvd. between the bridge and Canal Street, I saw dozens of National Guard vehicles on the right side of the street and dozens of Wal-Mart trucks on the left side of the street -- and no other vehicles except a compound of media satellite trucks on Canal Street.

Wal-Mart's response to Hurricane Katrina is the best PR campaign I have ever seen -- because it's not a PR campaign. It's people taking action -- in their own self interest and out of genuine concern for human suffering -- deeds, not words. It has done wonders for Wal-Mart and sets a standard the rest of us should aspire to.

John Moore at the Brand Autopsy blog has been covering the Wal-Mart/Katrina story; his site is full of commentary about the impact on Wal-Mart's brand. What other examples of Action PR can you think of, where a company's policy of consistently doing something real above and beyond expectations has raised the firm's status among the public?

STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC
New Orleans Refugee