For many corporations and individuals, common sense dictates the practice of astroturfing (see Wikipedia’s definition if you’re unfamiliar) is something to be avoided, since it’s unethical and chances are it will backfire. It’s also against the law thanks to new FTC guidelines.

So if you’re the world’s largest public corporation by revenue, and stockholders, journalists, bloggers and pretty much everyone under the sun is watching what you’re up to, astroturfing is a disaster waiting to happen – especially if you were caught doing something similar back in 2006.

But that didn’t stop Wal-Mart from setting up a fake community group to drum up support in Chicago, where the company is gunning for a second store within city limits.

When the Chicagoist blog received a series of pro-Wal-Mart comments from unknown screen names in response to various posts, blogger Kevin Robinson decided to investigate. He discovered that, with the help of PR firm Serafin & Associates and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Wal-Mart is behind the phony advocacy group, “Our Community. Our Choice,” which was linked to the blog comments.

Wal-Mart and its associates have every right to plea the corporation’s case to the people of Chicago. And the citizens do, too, if they’re legitimate. But establishing a fake community group that professes to stand for residents and their interests is undoubtedly devious and a tactic no PR firm or brand should use.

A few years ago, I stopped at a Wal-Mart on my way to a weekend of camping in Virginia. As I walked in, a young woman walked out yelling to an older person slowly making her way across the parking lot, “They’ve got the big old pecan pies again!” A year before that, I was at a Dale Chihuly exhibit at a conservatory in Chicago when a man said to his wife, “Look, honey, those look like the flowers we saw at Wal-Mart yesterday.” Standing there among the stunning glass and rare flora, a deep discount retailer was arguably the furthest thing from my mind. Experiences like these remind me how central consumerism is to our lives. Shopping is how we entertain and often define ourselves. The question everyone is asking now is: Will the global recession we’re facing change that?

A new study conducted by Context-Based Research Group, an ethnographic research company, and Carton Donofrio Partners, a marketing firm, concluded a new “grounded consumer” will rise from the ashes of the economic meltdown. The team identified a five-stage process that consumers are undergoing as they struggle through this cultural transformation. Consumers will first have the realization that they are not what they buy. Next, they come to terms with the inherent dangers of living a life on credit. Then they begin to measure the value of their purchases differently as they start to think about the bigger societal impacts of their purchases. With that, they remove the excess “stuff” that they realize they don’t need in their lives. Lastly, the new Grounded Consumer views their life going forward as more than a series of purchases.

Consumers won’t stop spending entirely, but they will definitely spend differently. As brands step back and try to understand how their customers’ mindsets are shifting, this study presents an interesting framework for rethinking how they communicate their own value. We’re already starting to see this play out in holiday ad campaigns for companies such as DeBeers and Tiffany.

Click here to see a cool video of the anthropologists presenting their findings and to download a copy of the study.

Disclosure: Rose Communications has a strategic alliance with the two firms responsible for this study.