FedEx announced today that they are cancelling their ads previously scheduled to run during the Super Bowl.
As a country, we are in unprecedented economic waters. And as a responsible employer of more than 290,000 employees and contractors worldwide, there is a time to justify such an ad spend and a time to step back.There could be other reasons, but we'll take this at face value and assume that they will repurpose the funds toward their employees in some way. NBC will undoubtedly be disappointed, but probably FedEx will pay some "early withdrawal" penalty, and the network can resell the spot. Perhaps one of the upsides of the recession is that (some) companies will reevaluate how they deploy their funds.
As a way of expressing approval of FedEx's choice, TYWKIWDBI hereby grants them some free "air time" by embedding two of their classic commercials. The bottom one aired in 2003, and is an excellent parody of the Tom Hanks' movie Castaway. The top one is the Emmy award-winning "Stick" from 2006. Enjoy.
Addendum: found by Noumenon - Look how Fed Ex is doing its pay cuts, too -- 5% cut across the board, 10% cut for executives, 20% for the CEO.
