Dave Disciples Flip Wigs Over Trendy Wendy

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Despite Seeming Success of Saatchi Campaign, the Family Thomas Fumes

Another CMO shoots from the hip. For Wendy's CMO Ian Rowden it must have taken a lot of brain cells to come up with a Ronald McDonald spokecharacter with a five o'clock shadow. Visual shock jock or creepy molester. If I saw this man in the parking lot, would you want your child to run up an give him a hug?

Who needs differentiation with dignity? According to CMO Rowden embarrassment sells. Everyone likes to stop and stare at an accident. But at what cost? A little intent to purchase bump? Big deal. Ian, ya took the low road even though the ads are pretty funny. You'd do a lot better telling us why we should choose Wendy's over the millions of independent hamburger outlets across the land like Tommy's or Omega Burger.

The daughter of the chain's late founder Dave Thomas publicly slammed the ads in The Wall Street Journal as a personal affront (Melinda Lou Thomas -- better known as Wendy -- auditioned to appear in the new campaign, but Wendy's spokesperson Bob Bertini said consumer response to Ms. Thomas' screen test "was not positive.") Her sister, Pam Farber, also denounced the direction, and according to the Journal, Mr. Thomas' widow, Lorraine, has called for Chief Marketing Officer Ian Rowden's ouster. (Despite numerous attempts, the family couldn't be reached for comment.)

Darren Tristano, exec VP of Technomic, tooting his own horn said his food-industry research group used the Wendy's commercial as an example of the right way to target Generation Y at a recent conference, BUT, we're not certain who appointed them the judge.

By some accounts, Mr. Rowden's job is also in jeopardy. "When you talk to Ian, he says he's a change agent and all change agents eventually need to move on or die on the cross that they are dragging," said one person close to the account. "He talks like a guy soon to be moving on." Mr. Rowden denied he has any plan to leave Wendy's.

I bet Ian ends up writing one of those "How to brand it" books and ends up a consultant. What do you think?

Calle Company: Miller High Life Goes To Saatchi Saatchi

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Calle Company and Miller Brewing teamed to develop Cold-filtered Miller Genuine Draft - arguably Miller's most popular brand. No one at agency or client level has developed as popular a brand or strategy since. Here again it sounds like someone on Madison Avenue threw a dart at the strategy telephone book and got lucky. The agency CEO says "OK, now we've got 'something' that works so we're going to expand it." Clinging to the account for the perilous ride, I'd have trouble sleeping at night not knowing how to find an even better strategy. But there are at least 500 ways to better position the brand found by utilizing the disruptive information creation techniques we've proven at Miller, Procter Gamble Pepsi and Frito-Lay. By the way, never used "LIFE is my favorite beverage" outscored every other tested strategy for intent to purchase via BASES when developed by Calle Company for the brand at the same time we developed MGD. Cavemen averting extinction by having a brainstorm insight on how they'd divert an asteroid heading toward earth won thunderous applause. www.callecompany.com This is one execution in a series as to how LIFE disrupted Budweiser and became everyone's favorite beverage.