Costco's Public Relations Contacts - Costco's No PR Claim Is False

Costco does have a public relations department, despite its declaration to the contrary. We are sharing what we learned to help other journalists and the public know the truth about Costco and how to better contact Costco PR directly.

Massive publicly traded corporations (Costco did net sales of $163 billion in 2020) should be accountable to the public and to journalists rather than hiding behind generic forms.

Costco requires media to submit a google docs form, copied below, which emphasizes that they do "not have a PR or Media Department" insinuating that busy executives may reply directly:

When we and TechCrunch initially contacted Costco about selling Dahua Lorex products (a company that has been sanctioned for human rights abuses and deemed a threat to US National Security) Costco did not respond to either of us. When we subsequently contacted Costco about how Costco was illegally selling China-made products without disclosing Country of Origin, they did respond with the following message:

We made no agreement with Costco about not including the names of Costco's spokesperson. Our position is that the public has the right to know who is speaking on behalf of companies on public interest matters.

We contacted Mr. Gaitanis on Friday, October 29 regarding his request for anonymity to determine whether there was a legitimate reason for the request, but he did not respond.

To that end, we are disclosing the names, titles, and LinkedIn profiles of the 4 Costco public relations employees included in their response to us:

• Michael Gaitanis, "Member Services" On LinkedIn, "Corporate Communications" in email to IPVM
• Muriel Cooper, "Corporate Communications"
• Jennifer Madera, "Corporate Comunications"
• Whitney Seneker, no LinkedIn profile but listed as "editor" of this Costco publication

If we can be of assistance to any journalist please contact us generally at info @ ipvm.com or myself directly at john @ ipvm.com