Work at CityCenter Project Halted

The huge number of jobs created at the CityCenter Project has given construction workers around the country hope during the economic meltdown. If times were tough at home you could always travel to Las Vegas and find work it seemed. That has all come to a grinding halt as of last week. Sources say as many as 500 electricians and 1200 carpenters were given pink slips as funding for the project has all but dried up.

If you’ve never seen the Las Vegas CityCenter Project in person it’s hard to imagine the scope. Try to envision the largest construction site you’ve ever seen and then multiply that by three. It’s the largest construction project in the history of Las Vegas. That should tell you something right there. We’re talking billions of dollars worth of work. One blogger describes it as the Deathstar from Star Wars. Perhaps Dubai has something of this size, but I’ve never been there.

Did Wal-Mart Rip-Off Union Slogan?

This week Wal-Mart rolled out its new marketing slogan after 19 years of the infamous “Always Low Prices, Always” campaign. Their “Save Money, Live Better” slogan seems like a rip-off of the Labor movement’s “Live Better, Work Union” motto which has been used on everything from bumper stickers to
t-shirts and banners for as long as I can remember.

What will the company come up with next? The slogan “Union Yes” bastardized to say “Wal-Mart Yes?” I can see it now; red, white and blue with a checkmark in a box. Let's be glad they didn’t go with “Live Better, Work Wal-Mart” though no one would buy that garbage. I suppose they could have tossed around the idea of a jingle, instead of "Look for the Union Label" it would be "Look for the Wal-Mart Label."

If it wasn’t so blatant it would be funny and yet I didn’t hear one reporter mention it on the news this week. The media wouldn’t risk losing precious advertising dollars from the World’s largest retailer.

It seems to me that Wal-Mart tried to save a few bucks on their own advertising budget. Replacing the tired “Always Low Prices, Always” slogan after 19 years was probably a good idea, since everyone equates low prices with cheap labor and dead-end jobs. The idea of cheap imported goods lost some appeal with pets being poisoned and kids being endangered by lead paint and loose magnets. Even the free-trade crowd lost a little fervor over these latest incidents. Child labor and sweatshop conditions, they could live with as long as it took place overseas, but poison their cat and things have finally gone too far.

How blatant can you get though? Whose idea was it to take half a slogan from the most vocal group to speak out against the corporate giant and then make it theirs? It’s mind boggling! I’d be willing to bet some marketing geek stuck in traffic saw a “Live Better, Work Union” bumper sticker and said, “I’ve got it!"

The fact is people shop at Wal-Mart because they have to. It’s not about living better. No one wants to shop at Wal-Mart. People end up in Wal-Mart because they have cheap crap for less money. It’s not about living better. It’s about scraping by. That’s why I predict this latest strategy of Wal-Mart’s will fail.

What do you think? Did Wal-Mart rip-off the slogan? How long do you think this new campaign will last?