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What Now for the Pets.com Sock Puppet?

Rob WalkerPosted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2000, at 12:08 PM ET

If you wanted the failure of your dot-com to go unnoticed, yesterday was a great time for the bad news to hit the papers. But I'm afraid that I just can't let the passing of Pets.com slip by unnoticed.

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Moneybox readers may recall an item in June noting the interesting paradox of an extremely popular branding campaign that seemed likely to be inconsequential to the company's future. It was the Pets.com sock puppet, of course, that carried the brand and became a small pop culture phenomenon. But the company is winding down anyway.

So what will become of the puppet? The company says that it will sell off its assets, and it lists the "Sock Puppet brand icon" prominently among them. This is an intriguing scenario: Offhand I can't think of an example of a company mascot losing its company while the mascot was still a relatively recent and well-liked entity. Is it possible for a mascot to switch allegiances to another company? If so, which one? Or could it become a sort "free agent," showing up in a range of ads, looking for work on Monster.com, lounging around with the Budweiser "Whassup?" crew, getting by on a MasterCard? Or maybe the puppet is best off quitting the corporate world altogether in favor of a development deal with DreamWorks.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Meanwhile, if you want to buy a talking sock-puppet toy or other puppet product from Pets.com, the clock is ticking fast. The home page of the company's Web site says it will stop taking orders tomorrow at 11 a.m. PT.

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Rob Walker writes the Ad Report Card for Slate.

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Reader Comments from The Fray:

[Note from the Fray Editor: Suggestions to date neatly cover the main pre-occupations of Americans right now. See also here for a story about an advertising icon who achieved crossover. And the original item on the sock puppet had a Fray piece on the Conan O'Brian lawsuit, here and scroll to the bottom.]

First, a book deal; then the talk show circuit. After all, who would have a better perspective on the whole dot.com boom-and-bust?

--Evan Dean

(To reply, click here.)

If this had happened a week earlier, we could have mounted a massive write-in campaign to put the sock puppet in the White House. That might have alleviated some of the current confusion, and there wouldn't be any doubts about whether the new president was really a puppet.

--KCKrypto

(To reply, click here.)

That two-timing, act-stealing sock puppet should be turned over to Conan O Brian's Triumph comic dog. In a perfect world, Triumph would do horribly delicious things to it.

--Kirk

(To reply, click here.)

(11/10)

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