Ad Blitz

With the death of Princess Diana, the Wendy’s restaurant chain has decided not to run a new ad in which company founder Dave Thomas asks customer Queen Elizabeth (played by a look-alike), “So, how’re the kids?” And Weight Watchers has pulled a spot featuring the real-life Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who tells viewers that losing weight is “harder than outrunning the paparazzi.” Both TV commercials were filmed before Diana’s fatal car crash. Meanwhile, a newspaper advertisement run by police in Warsaw, Poland, a week after Diana’s death features a photo of Diana and lamenting her “banal and absurd tragedy” to bring more attention to their anti-drunk driving campaign. Finally, a newspaper editor called a competing paper’s decision to accept an ad from the Volvo car distributor in Macau “despicable”. The advertisement features a photo of Diana and offers a “safety bonus” of 30,000 patacas (US$3,700) for each Volvo purchased. (various) ...1997: the year people started wondering, “Why can’t everyone be as sensitive to my feelings as corporate America?”