Just Another Day at Wal-Mart

About two weeks ago, I pushed my cart into Wal-Mart with OBB and Baby Girl aboard. Right as I entered the store, I could tell something was up. There were cameras. There were lights. There was action! They were shooting a commercial in my Wal-Mart!

Initially, I thought this was really cool. They picked my new, fancy Wal-Mart to shoot an ad! Then, when I realized they were taking every pre-caution so as to avoid getting me and my darling children in their commercial, I thought that was less than cool. See, they were shooting down the central aisle in Wal-Mart, which runs the entire length of the store, and trying to keep that aisle clear during business hours is a little challenging. They even had extras with shopping carts filled with particular items, ready to pop out of aisles when they called "action". It made me stop and stare for a second as I considered what these extras were wearing because, really, this is what Wal-Mart thinks their patrons look like...or hopes and wishes they would look like. Have you seen what some people wear (or don't wear) to go shopping at Wal-Mart? But I digress...

So back to the commercial. At the center of all the action was an animated Wal-Mart employee, espousing the numerous values to be found throughout the store. I wondered if he was really a real employee, so when I went to check out, I asked my cashier if he was a real person or just an actor. "Oh, yeah, that's Darrell (pronounced Durrelle). He works here." Well that was cool, I thought.





















(This would be Darrell and the director of the commercial shooting in my Wal-Mart. Here's a link to the director's blog, where I found this picture).

So that evening, I am sitting on the couch, watching the finale of Grey's Anatomy, and guess what comes on TV? A Wal-Mart commercial featuring Darrell! My husband assured me it had to only be a regional commercial and couldn't possibly be airing nationwide.

So night after night, every time I saw Darrell on TV, I would excitedly point it out to my husband, much to his dismay. Now granted this usually happened as we were fast-fowarding through commercials on shows we had DVR'd...and each time, I would try and stop and rewind to see the commercial, further irritating my beloved.

Well after doing a little research on the internet, I found out the whole story behind Darrell (who apparently goes by the moniker "Mr. Rollback"). See there's an ad agency here in Richmond called The Martin Agency. They are really creative folks and are the ones behind ads such as the Geico commercials, both the ones with the Cavemen and the Gecko, the Free Credit Report.com commercials with the band, and the UPS "Race the Truck" Nascar commercials. They even were named US Agency of the Year by Adweek last year, partly because of the work they did on the Wal-Mart account.

When it came to Wal-Mart, they decided to take a look around Richmond Wal-Marts for a spokesperson, and well, the rest is history. According to the director of the commercials, they've shot 50 scripts in 40 days. 11 of those commercials are airing right now all over the US and Canada. In other words, there's a lot more Darrell where that came from.

Here's an article that ran in a local paper about Darrell. He even made a cameo appearance at the Wal-Mart Annual Shareholder's meeting last week, alongside Jamie Foxx, doing the Rollback dance.

So the next time you come to visit me, ask me to take you to my Wal-Mart. Maybe we'll run into Darrell.