Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT) may be picking a new ad agency to handle its worldwide advertising duties as early as today. The world's largest retailer apparently wants to get a new agency onboard as quickly as possible after the recent fiasco involving two Wal-Mart ad execs leaving the company the the former ad agency -- DraftFCB from Chicago -- getting fired on the spot.

A published report states that Wal-Mart may indeed pick a new ad agency as soon as today, and the two finalists include some earlier usual suspects, including Ogilvy & Mather and the Martin Agency.

When Wal-Mart put its ad account up for review this year after having spent years with Omnicom's (NYSE:OMC) GSD&M, the global ad agency probably felt snubbed -- so much that after Wal-Mart fired DraftFDB, the Omnicom division said it would not return to compete for Wal-Mart's business.

Julie Roehm contradicted everything that Sam Walton ever held dear, and her hiring a year ago had many Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) observers scratching their heads. Famous for her racy, attention-getting antics -- like her "Lingerie Bowl" in which models clad in underthings played 'football' -- Roehm never seemed the right sort for Wal-Mart. She was fast cars, sex and rock-and-roll to Wal-Mart's Buicks, family values and Barry Manilow. In fact, her transformation of the shareholder meeting from boring to off-Broadway was a spectacle to behold (and, it seems, had old-line Wal-Mart executives "groaning," according to the New York Times.

[Recent Julie Roehm news:
Wal-Mart should bring Julie Roehm back -- May 27, 2007
Julie Roehm claims Lee Scott violated ethics -- May 25, 2007
Julie Roehm says Wal-Mart charges invalid -- March 29, 2007
Wal-Mart countersues Julie Roehm -- March 20, 2007]

Now she's been ousted, amid allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, and the advertising agency she chose -- DraftFCB of Chicago -- is unceremoniously dismissed before it even began work on the huge account.

How was this ever supposed to work? I have to ask. Wal-Mart executives, even Sam himself, were always told to sleep two to a room while travelling on business, and select the cheapest available lodging. The company has strict "fraternization" rules so that any relationship between colleagues is inappropriate. [While it's not said outright in anything I've read, it seems that Julie Roehm has been read-between-the-lines accused of sleeping with Sean Womack, a member of the marketing staff at a lower rank than Roehm. It doesn't shock me. People who work together sleep together, it's happened everywhere I've ever collected a paycheck.]

Wal-Mart is so not Julie Roehm.

With Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 's (NYSE:WMT) head of advertising gone along with another marketing exec from the world's largest retailer, the company -- as widely expected -- has booted its brand-new ad agency, just a few months before work was to begin in its effort to revitalize the image and sales of the world's largest retailer.

The ad agency, which is Chicago-based DraftFCB and a division of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE:IPG) -- won a very nice $570 million deal with the ad account of Wal-Mart just this year -- but it's gone now. The world's largest retailer dropped DraftFCB just two days after the exit of Julie Roehm, who was Wal-Mart's head of advertising.

Why did Wal-Mart just completely shake up it entire ad department and ad agency so suddenly? The company's decision to take the account back from DraftFCB "is the result of new information we have obtained over the past few weeks," according to the company. Hmm -- I wonder what that super-secret information was? Julie Roehm has been accused of accepting gifts from ad agencies and having an improper relationship with a subordinate. In addition, when Wal-Mart selects a new agency, DraftFCB won't be eligible to compete for the account.