You Sleep When You Die

Thanks for your questions! Remember, get your questions about advertising, business, the economy and more answered every Wednesday by posting comments to blog posts or on Twitter @JZspeaks via #askjz.

I noticed from your recent post you have an eighth grade girl graduating, congratulations!

While reading Business Week, I saw a story about the Silly Bandz founder and thought of you, seeking your sage retail advice. My granddaughter, a bit younger than your graduate, goes crazy for the “bandz.” My question, and that of most (including Silly Bandz owner) is how does an entrepreneur manage such explosive retail growth effectively and build a sustainable brand?

According to numbers released by the Commerce Department, sales continued to rise at retail stores in April at a rate higher than expected by industry experts. Combined with other recently released data on industrial production, manufacturing and consumer confidence, these figures seem to indicate that we’re well on our way to economic recovery.

However, upon further inspection, recent numbers might not be as encouraging as they originally seemed. Decreases were actually reported in several categories of retail stores, including sporting goods, electronics, hobbies, music stores, home furnishings, grocery and department stores.

So what does all this mean? Are we on the road to economic recovery or not??

Retailers are jumping ship in record numbers. They’re tossing out incumbent agencies and shopping for new ones, even going to “a creative shootout strategy between a roster of agencies.” In the past few months, Wendy’s, Volkswagen, Microsoft, Zappos.com, General Motors, Taco Bell, Wrigley’s and dozens of others have put their accounts into review or have hired new agencies.

Why?

I love what Walmart does and how they do it. Walmart is the world’s largest retailer for a reason: they provide goods and now services to consumers at the best value possible. All that being said, does it make any sense whatsoever that the bigwigs in Bentonville would focus their time and energy towards cannibalizing the Girl Scouts? Of course not! To quote Girl Scout “Cookie Mom’s” blog,

“This time, Walmart is knocking off the Girl Scouts…shoving itself in front of these little girls, and knocking on your door to sell you their almost-as-good fake Thin Mints and fake Tagalongs.”

Are you freaking’ kidding me?

Almost every agency out there says it has the best interests of its clients at heart. Well, actions speak louder than words. And based on their actions, it’s clear that most agencies don’t have the best interests of their clients at heart; in fact, far from it. Many agencies are more concerned with creating work that makes the agency itself look good than creating work that actually advances its client’s business.