Wendy’s plans commercials–without Dave Thomas

Bates USA, the advertising agency for Wendy’s, the third-largest hamburger
chain, was thrown into disarray Tuesday following the death of its founder,
Dave Thomas. “When a human so dominates the brand image, few brands survive
the demise of the personality,” Clive Chajet, head of a corporate identity
consulting firm which bears his name, told today’s (Wednesday) New York
Times. Thomas had appeared in more than 800 commercials for the chain.
Bates said it would pull existing commercials with Thomas and replace them
with ones that had been produced under “contingency plans” that were
apparently developed as Thomas’s health began to fail. He died of liver
cancer at age 69 after undergoing open-heart surgery in 1996 and kidney
dialysis last year.