Arizona Daily Sun- Wal-Mart's Nazi ad 'dumbest' of 2005

As if Wal-Mart wasn't embarrassed enough by its ad depicting a Nazi book burning during Flagstaff's Proposition 100 campaign, the ad recently received the grand prize in the advertising category of "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" for 2005 from CNN Money. The full-page ad in the Arizona Daily Sun used a photograph of a Nazi-era book-burning with the text: "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not ... So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The ad was part of the Wal-Mart-backed campaign opposed to a big-box limitation ordinance that would have prevented the corporation from locating a supercenter in Flagstaff. Wal-Mart bankrolled Protect Flagstaff's Future with $385,000 and signed off on the ad produced by a Valley political consulting firm.