Remember the heady days of the dot com explosion? I'm talking about the explosion before the implosion. The salad days, when money was being flung at any shiny new startup with a dot in its name, and millions were being spent on commercials and media to let us all know they existed.
Many of these commercials didn't have a whole lot to say about what the dot coms wanted to sell us, or why they could benefit us. But hey, this was the wild west. A brand new frontier! Marketing 101, schmarketing 101! Who the heck needs that silly stuff when you're all shiny and bright and have a dot in your name? Remember Pets.com, Webvan.com, Kozmo.com and a host of others? If you don't, here's a tattered, fading list of the top ten dot bombs here.
Then again, they were often entertaining while they lasted. And this classic of ambiguous advertising BS created by Cliff Freeman & Partners (also, by the way, out of business), with nary a marketable truth, feature or benifit from Outpost.com is indeed a clasic of the genre (unless you love Gerbils). I'm still chuckling after all these years. So Happy Friday, and enjoy!
Apparently, risky for both the client and the agency... now both history! Although I must say, in my delusional youth when awards and recognition meant more to me than creating effective advertising that might ensure a steady paycheck, I thought Cliff Freeman & Partners rocked!
Posted by: Russ Tate | 08/03/2011 at 08:38 PM
Another example of what amounts to just throwing something (or in this case firing from a cannon) at the wall and seeing what sticks.
An awfully risky strategy with a client's money!
Posted by: Name Withheld | 08/03/2011 at 11:07 AM
I didn't know what they did or sold, but who cares. It was great entertainment. Funny stuff, Russ.
Posted by: steeb | 07/29/2011 at 10:20 AM