Advertising Age Looks Inside Wal-Mart’s Marketing Debacle
Posted on December 11, 2006 by webteam
Sam’s Successors Share Blame for Wal-Mart Shame:
A senior executive at one Wal-Mart supplier said the retailer’s growing crisis was a major subject of conversation among senior retail and package-goods executives at a gathering last week. He compared Lee Scott to George W. Bush and suggested Mr. Scott needs to appoint his own equivalent of the Iraq Study Group-this one made up of respected business executives, experts and high-profile critics-to recommend a way out of his own quagmire. “If he doesn’t, he should be replaced immediately.”
Pushing Envelope Julie’s MO—Not Wal-Mart’s:
Now-departed Senior VP-Marketing Julie Roehm had a reputation for pushing the envelope of propriety. When she was at Chrysler, she signed up as a sponsor of the racy “Lingerie Bowl,” before having to withdraw under pressure. And it was she—speaking of arrested adolescence—who thought it appropriate to advertise the Hemi engine in Dodge trucks with two guys at urinals talking about how “size matters.” Ha ha. Next stop, incomprehensibly, Wal-Mart. This is a chain that doesn’t carry Maxim, due to boobage concerns, or pornographic literature, such as Jon Stewart’s “America: The Book.” It rejects music that could potentially offend the sensibilities of its customers, among them a CD by the noted anarchist pervert John Mellencamp.
Unruly Julie and the Scandal That Rocked the Ad World:
Among the alleged missteps by Ms. Roehm: accompanying one of the agencies in the retailer’s $580 million review to a flashy dinner at Nobu restaurant; sitting in that agency chief’s Aston Martin; sleeping with Mr. Womack. Ms. Roehm admits to the first two and strenuously denies the third. Still, her behavior ultimately led to one of the most spectacular collapses of a marketing executive, casting doubt on a promising career and undoing one of the most stunning account shifts in Madison Avenue’s history: Wal-Mart’s October decision to award its $580 million account to DraftFCB, just months after parent company Interpublic Group of Cos. decided to create the unit and put Howard Draft—yes, he of the Aston Martin—at its helm.
As Wal-Mart Reopens Review, Windy City Ad Community Lets Out a Groan:
DraftFCB’s victory in Wal-Mart’s $580 million review was such a big deal within the moribund Chicago advertising community that Mayor Richard M. Daley crashed the agency’s victory party.And why not? Local ad agencies had seen a parade of major accounts flee the Windy City during the previous year, and a lot of jobs went with them. So a win that let DraftFCB add more than 100 people to its Chicago office—which pitched the business and was slated to run it—was a ray of hope. Was.
In Bentonville, Buyers Abide by Stringent Code:
Wal-Mart executives and buyers can’t take so much as a cup of coffee from vendors and aren’t supposed to interact with them outside of work. In the series of small, sparse rooms inside headquarters where vendors meet with buyers, there’s even a plaque that references the policy. Before Sam Walton’s death in 1992, that’s pretty much the way it worked.
Draft Dealt Staggering Blow After Strutting Like A Champ:
In fact, Advertising Age had decided that DraftFCB, thanks to the boldness of its model and the Wal-Mart new-business coup, was going to be this publication’s Agency of the Year, a decision that would have been officially announced in our Jan. 8 issue. Now, all that has changed. The agency’s falling out with Wal-Mart in one of the most bizarre stories to ever shake Madison Avenue has clouded what seemed an almost-too-good-to-be-true start to its existence. For everyone from Mr. Draft, the chairman-CEO, to the lowest of the rank and file, the retailer’s decision to fire the agency just weeks after appointing it is a major embarrassment it will have to shake off quickly.
Video: Julie Roehm Before the Fall:
Earlier this year, four months after she began her new job with Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Julie Roehm spoke on camera with Advertising Age about how excited she was to be part of the change going on inside the headquarters of the world’s largest retailer. She noted that she was part of a new marketing “approach that’s fresh” at Wal-Mart—a situation she characterized as “an opportunity made in heaven for me.”
