Always Wal-Mart. Always?

These may sound like the ingredients to a new hit show this season, but instead these are the rumors surrounding Wal-Mart and the latest scandal to hit the business and advertising industries.

Here are the facts: Wal-Mart hired Julie Roehm to lead the search for its new ad agency amid struggling growth and increased competition. Roehm has a reputation for pushing the envelope and bucking corporate culture. Wal-Mart remains as conservative an organization as possible in today’s climate.

With nearly $600 million in advertising dollars up for grabs, Roehm convinces a group of Arkansas businessmen to ride with DraftFCB, an agency with a checkered past of mergers but came into the presentation phase with guns blazing and a charismatic leader named Howard Draft.

A few months pass and the rumors start flying; Wal-Mart fires the upstart Roehm, re-opens the agency review minus DraftFCB, re-assigns some top executives and welcomes the new year expecting dramatically different results this time around.

Experts around the country have been taken back by all these events, from the hiring of Roehm up to the present day, when a new agency choice is on the verge of being announced. 

While companies are always looking to make changes and offer fresh perspective, mistakes like this happen with regularity in business, global billion dollar company or not. 

Through all of this, Wal-Mart may have learned one valuable lesson: culture modifications are one thing, but changing your stripes entirely never works. 

Note: As of the publication of this issue, Julie Roehm has filed suit against Wal-Mart claiming the retailer breached her contract and damaged her reputation, including making “false and malicious statements to the media."