The world’s biggest company [at the time] had a big issue. Walmart has some of the most loyal shoppers, but it also has a lot of haters—hurting the brand.

How do you help shift America’s negative perceptions of Walmart during an economic crisis—especially at the height of the Great Recession?

To shift these deeply engrained perceptions, I facilitated research to understand the deeper cause of economic pain. The perception of the American dream being an illusion, our government and economy failing us, and jobs being harder to come by. But even though everything is crumbling around us, Walmart has been a globally consistent leader—permitting them to tackle an issue even bigger than itself: American jobs.

Walmart committed to investing $250 billion in products that support American jobs during the great recession, so we reframed this initiative by showing the dignity people feel when working.