The Du Bist Deutschland tale: another example of how the old rules of media just don’t work any more:

The idea seemed like a good one: an ad campaign to buck up the German spirit and remind the depressive citizens of Europe’s largest (but struggling) economy that things really aren’t all that bad. Ad agencies, newspapers and a number of celebrities donated some 30 million-worth of advertising space to the nonprofit Du Bist Deutschland campaign launched last September.

It didn’t work.

The ads have spawned so much criticism and satire that a Google search doesn’t even bring up the campaign’s Web site on its first page.

This skeptical reception was spurred, in part, when a very grumpy email from the head of the agency that spearheaded the campaign was leaked to the blogosphere. Karma, perhaps?