I was driving to the office this morning, listening to funny morning shows on the radio as usual, and forgot to switch stations when the commercials came on. Before I knew it I got hit by a blatantly forward (and shameless) punchline: “Spend your paycheck at Wal-Mart.” For the remainder of the day I couldn’t get this out of my head – There is just something awkwardly eerie about this no-nonsense demand – my mother doesn’t talk to me like that!

Wal-mart is the world’s biggest company according to Fortune’s top 500 and in the top three of the world’s most extendible brands according to Cheskin’s Brand Extendibility index. Wal-Mart has gained its high rankings by being ridiculously affordable through immense economies of scale, the more consumers purchase their cheap goods the more value they will receive – like the addition of high-quality organic foods.

Back to Mind Control – This company is so confident with its brand’s positioning that they can get away with just about anything…they have already banned labor unions, taken advantage of cheap foreign labor, and forced supplier ultimatums.
And the Question … Is this the brand positioning climax?