Category: Uncategorized

Brace yourself. The good times are about to stop rolling.

The real estate market has stopped expanding. Some economists are predicting the bubble will burst. Others predict a soft landing. But any way you cut it, the bubble has stopped growing.

The inventory of houses in the hottest growth markets continues to grow. A year ago in the hot zones houses sold in less than thirty days. Today the average home in those communities stays on the market for at least six months, and the number of months is growing.

Next step? Homeowners will decide they can’t make a seventh mortgage payment on the old place, and will start dropping price to promote a quicker sale. It won’t take long before everyone is forced to drop price.

Then there are those interest-only loans that people used three years ago to buy more house than they could afford. These va mortgage rates today have far different rates than one could get years ago. The loans were short-term, and converted to a conventional principal plus interest loan about… well, about now. That means a much higher house payment – a payment that many of them will no longer be able to afford. In markets like San Diego and Las Vegas the repossession rate is already growing at an alarming rate.

Why am I talking about real estate in a marketing column? Because Americans are a peculiar people. Each time we determine that we’ve improved our net worth, we spend about 10% of it.

For the last six years, American homeowners have spent with reckless abandon as they perceived growth in their homeowner’s equity. They didn’t spend actual cash, but rather added to their credit card debt. The growth has stopped. The debt remains. Consumer optimism is about to screech to a halt.

Soft landing? Bubble burst? Doesn’t matter. Without upward motion in real estate consumer spending is about to change abruptly.

What will you do when consumer optimism ends?

How are you going to attract new customers to your business when they’re afraid to spend?

Why aren’t you doing that already?

---

“Robbie,” I said, “will you deliver the artwork by Friday?” Robbie looked at me and said “Well, I’ll try.”

“So, you’re not going to make a Friday delivery,” I asked? Robbie said “I told you, I’ll try.”

“But that wasn’t the question, was it?” I pointed out. “The question was, ‘Will you deliver the artwork by Friday.’ I’m not asking for effort. I’m asking for commitment. You have refused to make the commitment. I’m interpreting your answer as ‘No.’”

As you might imagine, Robbie doesn’t get any of my business.

Are you a supplier of goods or services? Do you deliver when you say you will? Is your word a binding commitment?

It’s just you and me, here. You can be honest.

Your customers don’t care about the difficulties that have popped up in your life, or your business. They don’t want to know about unplanned urgent distractions. They don’t want to know that your suppliers are backordered. They just want you to deliver on time.

My partner, Roy Williams, often asks “Why do customers not come to your store? Is it because they don’t know about you? Is it because they do know about you?”

My friend and former boss, Rick Dames, says: “It’s so simple. Just do what you say you’re going to do.”

It IS simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple.

Is your word a binding commitment?

If your answer is “Yes,” consider making that willingness to commit part of your marketing strategy.

But if your answer is “No,” understand that advertising won’t help your business.

Oh, advertising may get you some new short-term customers. But when you disappoint them, the collective negative word of mouth is going to outweigh any positive impressions left by your advertising.

So, what’s it going to be?

Is your word a binding commitment?

Will you deliver by Friday?

Today we’re discussing strategy. A very specific example of strategy, which we will get to in a minute.

But first, let me mention some of the marketers I admire. Their names make up a very short list. There are only slightly more than a dozen, and all but five of them are now deceased.

The group no longer with us includes Claude Hopkins, John E. Kennedy, Albert Lasker, David Ogilvy, and Rosser Reeves. Pretty heady company, wouldn’t you say?

Two of the names remaining on my list are still very much alive: Bryan Eisenberg, and Jeffrey Eisenberg of Future Now, Inc.

When people first started offering things for sale on the Internet, any site which managed to funnel 2% of the shoppers landing on the site all the way through to check out was considered “successful.”

But, about a decade ago, Bryan and Jeffrey were already saying “Wait a minute. 2% is the average response rate for direct mail. But on your web page 2% conversion means you’ve driven off 98% of the people who came looking for what you’re selling. Shame on you.”

Future Now, Inc. was the pioneer in conversion rate marketing. They invented the method for architecting and optimizing multiple scenarios to convert web site visitors into customers. This methodology is called Persuasion Architecture.^TM

It’s the reason that companies like General Electric, Overstock Dot Com, NBC Universal, Volvo, and the Walt Disney Company pay Bryan and Jeff multiple tens of thousands of dollars for consultation.

I’ve just read an advance copy of their new book, Waiting For Your Cat To Bark – Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing.

Their last book, Call To Action, made the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal best seller lists. I predict Waiting For Your Cat To Bark will be an even bigger seller, and even more influential.

But, as the Eisenboys have been teaching since they started Future Now, Inc. in 1998, why would any astute marketer leave the result to chance?

Which brings us to the specific strategy I mentioned.

When Call To Action was first released, Bryan and Jeff taught a one-time-only seminar on its content at the legendary Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas. The cost was $3,000 per attendee, and the event sold out.

This time, they’ve slightly changed the terms.

As before, there will be a one-time-only seminar at Wizard Academy for Waiting For Your Cat To Bark. This time, the tuition has been reduced to only $1,800, and each attendee will receive 100 hardback copies of Waiting For Your Cat To Bark at no additional charge. Or, if you prefer, buy 100 copies of the book and attend the seminar for free.

Either way, the Eisenbrothers believe you’ll be sending a whole bunch of those books to friends, colleagues, clients and potential clients.

Now suppose that a hundred people should take them up on this offer.

One hundred people learn directly from Bryan and Jeff the techniques they used to improve the conversion rates from as low as 0.5% to well over 56% for clients such as Leo Schachter Diamonds.

On the same day ten thousand copies of Waiting For Your Cat To Bark will be sold, boosting it’s position on the best-seller lists.

My prediction? Those one hundred attendees will become evangelists for Future Now, Inc.

After helping to skyrocket Waiting For Your Cat To Bark directly up the best sellers charts, those evangelists will start making gifts of ten thousand copies of the book, boosting the Eisenberg’s reputations, and quite likely sending them dozens of new clients for conversion rate consultation.

This is brilliant marketing strategy.

Can you use their example? Can you package knowledge with huge numbers of sales and boost your reputation in the process?

---

You may also be interested in the Eisenberg’s first book, Persuasive Online Copywriting, and in the video series which became an extension of the book, The Principles Of Online Copywriting.

When I write something for this blog, I frequently hit the “preview” button to make sure that it’s going to look on your screen the way it looks on mine.

I wanted to post an article that involved data in tables. It didn’t preview well. Not well at all.

At first, I tried to space the data so that it would line up as if it were in a table.

Blog software appears to HATE spaces, and kept collapsing my carefully spaced columns. I tried inserting a series of periods to hold the space, and colored them the same as the background so they’d effectively be invisible. Something wierd was happening with proportional spacing that kept messing up those columns, too.

Ok. Let’s change tactics.

I created actual tables in an HTML editor and pasted them in the post. The tables looked ok, but the blog software added a dozen line feeds after each, which pushed the next bit of text down past the bottom of the page.

That didn’t preview well, either.

After a bit of studying the on-line help files, I determined that I should turn off the automatic line feed feature. Unfortunately, that one is a global command and affects every article on the blog. I got the article in question to look right, but the rest of the last year-and-a-half of my posts collapsed into one giant paragraph each.

Not pretty.

But, even though it didn’t work properly on this blog, that particular change did make the e-mailed Fishing For Customers newsletter look right. If you’re a subscriber, you will have already received “The Cost Of Effectiveness.”

If you aren’t, I’ll happily e-mail you a copy. Drop me a note and ask for the April 7 newsletter.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Chuck

PS. Anyone who is a whiz at HTML, PHP, and Server Side Scripting, and who might have some time to help resolve a few of these issues, please click the link and send me your rates.

PPS. Why haven’t you subscribed to the Fishing For Customers newsletter? It’s free, and your information will never be shared. I take your trust seriously.

I just got off the phone with a client. We discussed the results of a two-step campaign he’s been running to establish a relationship with potential customers. He quickly steered our conversation toward response percentages.

“Response is not yet relevant,” I said. “The first numbers we must count are dollars expended on the campaign, and dollars coming back to your business as a result of that campaign.

“Its the response rate, and the average sale, and the upsell, and the markup, and the repeat sales factored against the cost. This is Return On Advertising Investment. It’s the first and most critical number.”

Start with gross sales. Subtract your cost of goods (or cost of services). Divide the difference by the cost of the campaign to calculate your Return On Advertising Investment.

Any whole number is good, and the larger the number the greater your return.

Suppose that your ROAI calculations show that you’re getting back $3.00 for every $1.00 you’ve invested. Is your advertising too expensive? (Lemme ask it this way: could you consistently get a 300% return on any other investment?)

But now that you know your 3.0 ROAI, perhaps it’s time to examine that response rate. A ten percent improvement in any of the vairables will also increase your ROAI by ten percent, to 3.1. Could you improve that rate with a stronger offer? More frequency of repetition? Adjusting for seasonality?

When you know the ROAI, it’s easy to determine whether tweaking the other variables is making things better or worse. Until you know the ROAI you have no way of determining whether you can even afford to continue the campaign.

Let me give you an example* of why response isn’t important by itself, but ROAI is.

A few years ago an acquaintence of mine took over recruitment advertising for a large employer in Minneapolis. The company had been running regular display advertising in the “want ads” section of the Minneapolis Tribune. He placed all of their ad dollars on six local radio stations.

About ten days into the new strategy the client called, somewhat agitated, and said “We normally get a hundred applicants a week. This last week we got only three.”

The ad man asked “How many of those hundred applicants do you typically hire?” His client told him the usual number was three. He then asked “How many of the three applicants who did respond to the ads did you hire?” His client said “Well, all three.”

“Humm…” said the ad man. “So for the same investment you got the same three qualified employees, but this time you didn’t have to interview the ninety-seven deadbeats? That upsets you?“

In this example, adjusting the advertising because of the change in response rate would have been counter productive. But tracking the Return On Advertising Investment makes sure the campaign is accomplishing the job we need to get done.

---

* Choice of medium should involve the strategy, the desired audience, the offer, and a number of other variables, including cost. Please do not interpret this story as an endorsement of radio over newspaper.

A Zen truism: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

All over the world the vast majority of people are passing through stages of their lives, and ignoring advertising. Most people don’t need, don’t want, and are not even interested in most products being advertised. Thus, they ignore the ads.

At age 14 did you pay attention to stockbroker’s ads? When you were 21 had you ever noticed an ad for a retirement community? I can assure you that the ads existed. Why don’t you remember any of them?

If you’re like most of us, at that stage of your life you had no interest in these things. You ignored the ads. Their message didn’t even enter your consciousness. No wonder you don’t remember seeing any of them.

We live in an information rich society. Frankly, we live in an information-overloaded society. Out of sheer self-defense we ignore most of the adverbabble that surrounds us.

When you think of your high school graduating class, how many of you married at the same time, and had children simultaneously? Few, I’ll bet. So though you and your classmates may have had very similar life experiences, you didn’t have them at the same time. You moved through the various stages of your life independently of those around you.

And for most of your life, you’ve ignored most advertising.

The person most aware of advertising? The owner of the business. The owner has such a high exposure to his own ads that he’ll get tired of them much more quickly than the public ever will. He’ll want to “try something new” just out of boredom.

He shouldn’t.

If the ads are working to deliver a steady stream of customers, he should let them continue to do the job they were designed to do. The Sherwin Cody School of English ran the same ad for 42 years – “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?” Mr. Cody was never bored when he heard his cash register ringing.

Last year’s shoppers are already someone’s customers. Maybe the business we’re discussing. Maybe a competitor.

Once people’s lives enter a new stage, they have new motivations to listen to the ads, and to hear them for the first time. And the messages that worked so well last year, will work equally well this year on a whole new group of shoppers.

This is why successful ads shouldn’t be changed often.

The rhythm of life doesn’t have us all marching to the same beat. And at any given time we pass out of a life stage as someone new enters. Think of this as a steady stream of first time buyers.

When the student is ready…

A woman becomes pregnant for the first time. For the first time in his life, her husband is becoming aware of ads for baby furniture, for disposable diapers, for college funds. Those ads, which surrounded him for years, are suddenly just “there.” Now, though, they are getting his attention.

How many first time pregnancies will there be this year?

America’s birth rate is 1.4%. Our population is 51% female. The U.S. Census tells us that the average family has 1.9 children. Therefore: less than four tenths of one percent of the population will be pregnant for the first time this year. Slightly more than three hundredths of one percent will be pregnant for the first time this month.

A company that manufactures or sells baby monitors, for instance, will have roughly three hundredths of a percent of the population in their marketing area become aware of them for the first time this month. And that’s enough to keep them profitably in business.

The ads they ran last year will be noticed for the first time by a whole new group of shoppers this year, and last year’s appeals will be just as attractive to this year’s shoppers.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

It takes a lot of effort to just be noticed in our over communicated world. When you (or your advertising manager / agent / consultant) have come up with an idea that actually persuades someone to purchase from you, don’t stop running that ad until it stops “pulling.”

---

1) If people don’t know you exist, they can’t buy from you. (You’ve heard before that it pays to advertise).

2) Just because customers don’t complain doesn’t mean they are happy.

3) Don’t assume that everyone is like you. Other people don’t watch the same television programs you do. They don’t live in the same part of town you do. They don’t share your tastes in anything. Never assume that your marketing dollars should be spent on those things that would satisfy you as a customer.

4) Most small business marketing is focused on what the owner wants, instead of what the customer wants. Customers respond by ignoring the ad. Stop talking about you. Shoppers don’t care about your hours of operation, your location, or the number of years you’re claiming as “experience.” They want to know how you can save their time, make them money, or make other people think highly of them. Talking about yourself may be gratifying to your ego, but it also wastes your money.

5) If you make sales presentations to people who don’t need what you offer, it’s a tough sale, and would dwindle your sales promotion. Your advertising will have an equally difficult time in converting shoppers who don’t need what you offer. Stop trying to reach everyone. The narrower you target, the more successful your marketing will become.

6) An effective ad is focused. Like a hammer driving a nail into a hard board, an effective ad drives a single message into the mind of a prospective buyer. If you have more to say about your business, say the rest in another ads.

7) Make it easy for people to buy from you. If they’re interested in what you’re selling, tell them in your ad exactly what to do next. If you don’t, many will take no action at all.

8) Give people a reason to want to know how to get in touch, and they’ll figure out how.

9) You don’t need your phone number in your radio or television ad. Never say “we’re in the yellow pages,” and direct your prospect to your competitor’s ads as well as yours. Instead make sure shoppers remember your name, and remind them to find you in the white pages.

10) Stop putting your address in your ads. Use your location instead. Don’t say “4321 Liftoff Lane.” Say instead “At the corner of Liftoff Lane and First Avenue.” Can you tie in a landmark (“across from the water tower”)? So much the better.

11) Shoppers don’t call a logistics strategist when they want a package delivered. They call a shipping company. By the same token they don’t buy insurance from a financial services company. They don’t buy telephone systems from an integrated information systems specialist. People talk in terms of specifics, rather than in generalities. Tell them, in simple one or two syllable words exactly what you do.

12) The client almost always tires of the ad before the buying public does.

13) Good marketing is art. It is also science and business. It rarely works instantly. Sometimes the most important part of your marketing is patience.

14) Effective ads involve news that will impact shopper’s lives. Do you know what news is?

Ever heard that before? That an ad is so bad that it’s good?

Usually the person making the statement is someone who’s not responsible for creating, or paying for, advertising. (These are the same people who will also recite that the important thing is to “get your name out there.”)

Claiming an ad is so bad it’s good, generally means the ad is so obnoxious that it’s difficult to ignore.

Hummm.

Why try to make people remember the ad? Shouldn’t we be explaining that we can help them get what they’re looking for? If the presentation is so annoying or obnoxious that attention is drawn to the ad, it’s likely that people aren’t going to remember the rest of the message. They probably won’t remember your company, either.

Under these circumstances, that’s the best outcome you could hope for. The worst is that they’ll remember your company as the one that’s annoying and obnoxious.

So, what are the possibilites?

The good outcome is that you’ve wasted money on non-effective advertising.

The bad outcome is that you’ve managed to harm your company’s image.

Oops.

As for “getting your name out there,” there are already too many names floating around various media sources while being ignored by the marketplace. The brutal truth is that none of us needs any more names cluttering up our minds. That’s why we ignore most of what we see and hear.

Unless your name becomes associated with the solution to a problem that your prospect is already aware she owns, there’s NO advantage in getting your name “out there” either.

Instead, tell your prospect what you can do for her. Tell her simply and honestly. Tell her exactly what she should do next. And concentrate on helping her remember that you’re here to help her get what she wants.

Probably the best definition of selling I’ve ever heard came from Wizard of Ads^© partner Steve Clark, who said: “Selling is the transference of confidence from the seller to the buyer.”

Well, advertising is selling, isn’t it? Therefore, advertising should create confidence in the prospective buyer.

Good advertising does. Much of it does not. Why doesn’t all advertising create confidence?

Because people assume that the advertiser won’t say anything non-complementary about himself, his products, or his services when he’s paying for the ad. The public is always going to be skeptical of anything an advertiser says.

Should they be skeptical? Can advertisers be trusted? Humm. Let’s look at some.

Can consumers trust an advertiser that doesn’t tell the whole story?

Is not telling everything a lie of omission?

Most ads are factual, but incomplete. Hardcore fraud is illegal, but consumers have learned to be suspicious of one-sided presentations. Many deceive by implication. Many deceive with “weasel words.”

And beware the “*.” Whatever follows usually means “forget everything else in this ad. Here’s how we still intend to screw you.”

Can consumers trust an advertiser that contradicts what they already know to be true?

According to Al and Laura Ries “The ground rules for a successful advertising campaign start with acceptance. Accept what your brand already owns in the mind and move on from there.” A few pages later in The Fall Of Advertising And The Rise Of PR they also said “The true function of advertising is to reinforce an existing perception in the mind.”

A statement that your beliefs are wrong isn’t going to persuade you to pull out your wallet. Any claim that runs counter to your preconceptions of the world is treated in your mind as a lie.

(Note: I’m predicting the failure of Coca Cola Zero. In the mind of the consumer Coke is “the real thing.” So how does the consumer’s mind perceive the “real Cola taste with zero calories? As the phony real thing?)

(Question: Are there too many varieties of Coke? According to Coke spokesman Scott Williamson “We work hard to minimize that by making sure all of our brands have distinct graphics and marketing.” Good work, Scott. Lie to me in a different type face.)

The keyword is verisimilitude – “the appearance of truth.” It’s not enough to tell the truth. You have to tell it in a believable fashion.

Are these claims believable?

“We’ll loan you thousands of dollars… even if you have bad credit.”

“Make thousands stuffing envelopes at home.”

“Buy my cash flow system and quit your day job.”

“If you have a job, we can put you in a new car.”

No. They are not believable. They don’t “ring true.” They have no credibility. Customers will conclude they’re probably lies.

And no one can change your mind, either. At least, not until they’ve acknowledged the validity of your current beliefs, and then given you additional information to help you come to a new conclusion.

Can consumers trust politicians?

Every politician basically says, “Trust me.” Few of us do.

Politicians know how to project the image of being expert, being sincere, and being on your side. Like many other advertisers, politicians flatter their targets by complementing their intelligence and taste.

Cartoonist Dan Perkins, (using the pen name Tom Tomorrow), takes on the absurdity of American politics in his weekly comic strip, “This Modern World.” Dan says that people naturally “distrust advertising and politicians.”

Can consumers trust an advertiser that lies by association?

Evidence has taught us that there are entire industries that habitually lie. And it’s not just highly capitalized energy companies or their big international accounting firms (Enron / Arthur Anderson).

“If you’ve been hurt I’ll fight hard to get you the money you deserve for your pain and suffering.” A Braun Research survey of 401 random adults in March of this year indicates that 79% of Texans believe advertising by personal injury attorneys encourages people to sue even if they haven’t been injured.

Can we trust the pre-views of coming attractions to deliver the movie we’re going to plunk down dollars to see? Can they give us some sense of what to expect? Or, do we secretly believe the movie industry would tell us anything to sell another ticket?

What about car dealers? Stock brokers who call us at home? Long distance telephone service providers who call us at home?

Can consumers trust an advertiser that speaks in superlatives?

Amazing. Astounding. New. Improved. Bigger. Stronger. Faster. Highest power. Highest quality. Most secure. Least expensive. Revolutionary breakthrough. Better than you ever dreamed.

Why can’t we trust people who exaggerate?

Because exaggerations are lies.

Can consumers trust an advertiser that speaks in vague generalities?

Quality, beautiful, efficient, huge, none better.

OK, what quality? How does one measure it?

How beautiful? How does one measure it?

None better? Isn’t that another way of saying “we’re the same?”

To gain credibility, be very specific. You can be specific and still engage the imagination. “The vaulted ceiling is eighteen feet at it’s peak – so tall even Michael Jordan couldn’t jump that high.”

Can consumers trust a braggart?

A Fosdick Ad Readership study of 14,000 business-to-business ads shows that ads boasting about the company were four times as likely to receive low readership scores.

Companies who talk about themselves are like the guy at a party who won’t stop talking about himself. Eventually people get turned off and leave in boredom.

Congratulating yourself automatically keeps you from speaking of things of interest to your potential customer. “We’re number one!” doesn’t work. “Here’s how we can help” just might.

Customers don’t care how long you’ve been in business, which associations you belong to, which awards you’ve won, or your size vs. your competitors.

As my partner, Roy Williams has said:

“Heads look down and hands begin to write every time I say it in a public seminar, so I always give people time to write it down. It’s one of those things that’s so obviously true that people are surprised they never thought of it on their own. “Bad advertising is about you, your company, your product or service. Good advertising is about the customer, and what your product or service will do to change the daily world of the customer. Talk to the customer – in the language of the customer – about what matters to the customer.”

Can consumers trust an advertiser that advertises in a biased medium?

DON’T advertise in media outlets that don’t match your goals or standards.

As a Democrat, would you believe anyone who advertised in a Republican newsletter?

As a Christian would you believe anyone who advertised on an atheist web site?

Can consumers trust you?

Today’s customers aren’t just buying what you’re selling, they’re also buying you. With all of the reasons not to trust advertisers, how can you be perceived as honest?

Start by reaching the customer through the most truthful channel of all – her own experiences.

Find things your customer has experienced, and refer to those things in your ads.

Promise a shopping experience that you can, and do, deliver. We call this the Personal Experience Factor.

Get satisfied customers to give you unscripted testimonials. These raw, unrehearsed, and totally believable comments from other people will always have more credibility than polished and produced messages from the business owner.

And then?

Tell the truth. Tell the whole truth. Even the non-complementary parts.

According to the Sloan School of Management at MIT purchasers will trust the recommendations of a sponsored web site if it’s clear the site will recommend competitors products. MIT’s professor Glen Urban calls this “trust based marketing.” “Give them as much information and advice as they need to make an informed decision,” Urban says, “even when it’s not necessarily in your company’s best interest.”

The more truthful you are, the more comfortable, safe, and unthreatened potential customers are with you. They are more likely to purchase because they worry less about getting their money back, getting their purchase repaired, getting it delivered in a timely fashion.

Call it honesty. Call it believability. Call it sincerity. Call it verisimilitude. It all comes down to this: help your potential customers to trust you, and they will buy with confidence.

In addition to a couple of readers disagreeing that remote controls for car radios are designed for, and marketed to immature men, I also got this comment following last week’s essay on creating demand:

“McKay, read your claim that advertising can’t create a market. Would you please explain Pet Rocks? Surely there wasn’t a market for them before they were sold? – Jill”

Pet Rocks get quoted every few years as an example of advertising that created demand for a product no one needed. That’s not really what happened.

In early 1975 a Los Gatos, California advertising executive named Gary Dahl had stopped for a beer after work, when his friends started complaining about the lack of time they had for their pets.

Dahl started riffing on his pet rock, which required very little attention. Gary’s pet never kept the neighbors up by barking. It didn’t chew on or shed on the furniture. It ate nothing, and never forgot to go on the paper.

His buddies cracked up, then went home to nurse their hangovers. Dahl stayed and started toying with an idea.

For the next two weeks he wrote a step-by-step guide to having a happy relationship with your geological pet: the Pet Rock Training Manual.

“Sit” and “stay” were fairly easy to teach. So was “play dead.”

“Roll over” usually required extra effort on the part of the trainer.

“Come” was determined to be impossible to teach reliably.

Housetraining was elegantly simple: “Place it on some old newspapers. The rock will never know what the paper is for and will require no further instruction.”

Dahl tried to find a buyer for his new book. No one seemed interested.

I did mention that Gary was an advertising man, didn’t I? As a stunt to promote the book, Dahl created actual pet rocks. He purchased Rosarita beach stones from a building supply store at a penny each, packaged them in gift boxs which resembled pet carriers complete with air holes.

He took them to the annual San Francisco gift show in August. Each book came with a Pet Rock. Neiman-Marcus immediately ordered 500.

Dahl quickly determined that the book was unnecessary. People seemed to want the rocks.

By the following month Dahl was shipping up to ten thousand per day. By Christmas he’d sold nearly one and one half million.

By January most daily newspapers had run Pet Rock stories – including Dahl’s claim that “each rock was individually tested for obedience at Rosarita Beach in Baja, Mexico before being selected and boxed.” He appeared on the Tonight Show twice and was featured in Newsweek.

A number of imitators tried to cash in on Dahl’s notoriety and rushed their own products to market, including Pet Rock Obedience Lessons and Pet Rock Burial-at-Sea Services.

Note: if you ever come across a “Genuine Pet Rock,” you can be assured that it’s fake. Dahl never used the term “genuine.”

They were, however, too late. By January the fad was over.

Yes, people use the Pet Rock as an example of advertising having created demand for a useless product.

I contend that the demand was already there, and that the rock wasn’t useless.
Remember the mood of the country in 1975.

As the 60’s came to a close Americans witnessed the daily killing of young men in Viet Nam as television brought the war into our living rooms.

A former Rand Corporation military analyst leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. We learned that our government knew early on that the war would not likely be won. We learned that they knew the war would lead to many times more casualties than had been admitted publicly.

We also learned that our President had been involved in an illegal break-in of the office of his political opponents.

Woodstock became acknowledged as the official end of unfettered optimism and free love.

The introspective singer-songwriter of the 60’s had been replaced by the cynical rocker of the 70’s.

The U.S. was experiencing a major financial recession.

We lined up for hours to fill our tanks as the first Arab Oil Embargo gripped the nation.

It was a grim time. By mid 1975 we needed a good laugh, and the Pet Rock provided one. The Pet Rock hit the market, peaked, and was over in that tiny window of opportunity which existed in the four and a half months between the August gift show and Christmas. Had Dahl had the idea two years earlier or two years later it would likely have been a total flop.

A joke is only funny the first time, though. The Pet Rock spin offs didn’t even get any chuckles. Since one laugh in such a grim time wasn’t enough, we quickly became enamored of toe socks, mood rings, Deely Bobbers, Wall Walkers, and streaking.

The Pet Rock was the beneficiary of timing, but it wasn’t useless. The Pet Rock was just silly enough that people could forget the dreariness of their everyday lives and have some fun.

And that demand for a good laugh already existed, even though people hadn’t expressed it.