Draft FCB no longer on top as Wal-Mart walks

Bloomberg reports Wal-Mart is dropping Interpublic Group of Cos.' Draft FCB, its new advertising agency. The account will reopen its review for its $570 million advertising account.

The decision to bar Draft "is the result of new information we have obtained over the past few weeks," spokeswoman Mona Williams said in an interview today.

Wal-Mart in October selected Draft and Aegis Group Plc's Carat USA after a five-month review for a campaign slated to debut next year. Draft won't be eligible for the review while Carat will, Williams said.

Wal-Mart said Dec. 5 that Julie Roehm, the head of advertising who led the selection of the new agency, had left the company. Neither Roehm nor Wal-Mart would say then whether she resigned or was fired.

Or was it that horrible lion ad going around the adworld? ;)

Edit: Two related adscam posts Lewis Lazare on Wal-Mart and Julie Roehm! and Hey Howard... Send Julies check to that villa you bought her in Florida! The Wal-Mart address doesn't work any more!

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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AnonymousCoward's picture

Just desserts all around.

caffeinegoddess's picture

I just came across this old news when Draft won the account. Apparently Roehm took the final contenders for the account to an Eagles concert.

But Roehm had a little extra surprise in store, a little "Heartache Tonight." As soon as the concert ended and the group filed out onto the streets of Midtown, three of the four agencies knew they were in for "One of These Nights" when Roehm lowered the boom and told them they were out of luck.

DraftFCB, a. k. a. "The New Kid in Town," was handed the entire lot of business.

Apparently, the losers were less than pleased with the style of Wal-Mart's "Witchy Woman." As one ad exec said, "In some cases, a phone call is just fine."

adscam's picture

All the evil shit about how well and trully this is a giant fuck up is on AdScam... For some weird reason, no one else is posting about it and it's the biggest news of the year. Get your ass over to AdScam and enjoy.
Cheers/George

Dabitch's picture

added two links to the post (you can link in comments you know).

Who was it that called it first? :) I say someone muttering "they'll loose wal-mart" the nanosecond those lions began gathering complaints.