• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 23, 2008

During this afternoon's “Sink or Swim” panel discussion, guess who Michael Nicholas, SVP, Managing Director, Carat, picked for his “sink.” Yep, you guessed it, Wal-Mart.

“The guy from Carat chooses Wal-Mart for his sink. If you don't get that joke, just Google Wal-Mart and Carat,” Nicholas quipped, alluding to the not-so-ancient-history between the client and the media shop. In case you don't have your browser up, Wal-Mart assigned Carat to handle its media, then pulled the business when it fired its new brand shop, DraftFCB.

Actually, Nicholas' citation had less to do with sour grapes, and more to do with the fact that Wal-Mart had a great opportunity to leverage social media by creating a new youth-oriented social network dubbed the “hub.” The network, which was based on Facebook, however, was a “really good thing, but they did it poorly,” he said, citing the fact that Wal-Mart populated the network with “fake kids.”