Wal-Mart’s brought in the big guns from Edelman (and seemingly every political campaign of the last ten years) to help it beat back increasingly influential activist campaigns, sponsored in large part by union forces. This signals a radical shift in the corporation’s tactics - and when you bring in Michael Deaver, you’re really trying to send a message.

Read more about it in the New York Times today.

Attention food fanatics, anti-fatties, French epicures, anti-capitalists, the nutritionally obsessed and Morgan Spurlock: you have nearly four months to develop an anti-McDonald’s campaign based on their new nutritional information charts.

I may be biased, but I seem to have a thing for nutritional charts … and design. McDonald’s has developed new burger wrappers and packaging to communicate nutritional information, broken down per serving as well as a percentage of daily recommended allowances.

Initially, the design will roll out in several test markets, finally being launched in February at the booths in Turin for the 2006 Olympics.

There’s plenty of time between now and February 10, 2006 for your activist cell to plan, for a real opportunity exists to seize some valuable media real estate during the final launch of the design and accompanying packaging - with all eyes of the world upon you.

McDonald’s will only be supporting the new materials in-store and on the web - which means there will be a veritable print and visual vacuum for you to fill with redesigned charts, poorly imitated Hamburglar costumes, disillusioned McDonald’s employees from the test markets, near-sighted parents who didn’t know the caesar salad (with chicken, dressing and croutons) had 24 grams of fat, and the crazed Italian bistro owners driven bankrupt by corporate facilities sanctioned by the Olympic Committee.

But you better act quickly, because there’s sure to be some brand managers - outbid by their competitiors for Olympic sponsorship rights - drawing up their their ambush marketing tactics. Lord knows, your flash mob demonstration just won’t work if your grain-fed activists get waylaid at a food sampling station just outside the Olympic Village.

Interested in the diverging communications strategies employed by Merck and Pfizer in the aftermath of public and regulatory criticism of their Cox-2 drugs? There’s a very good piece in this month’s Medical Marketing and Media.

“Merck and Pfizer bookend Big Pharma, polar opposites in personality and business strategy. They have been tested in recent months, and their responses provide a brilliant primer in crisis management � and a note of caution to competitors who have not put their crisis communications plans in order.”