The Pets.com Sock Puppet

NOV 15 2000 · 12:00

An animated Pets.com banner GIF preserved on GeoCities, a relic of the sock-puppet brand that became the headstone of the dot-com bust. Place: Pets.com homepage · TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles Figures: Julie Wainwright, Pets.com CEO · Lee Clow, TBWA creative director · Michael Ian Black, voice of the sock puppet Pets.com launches in November 1998 with $50 million in Amazon-backed venture funding. The mascot, developed by TBWA\Chiat\Day, is a tube-sock puppet with a microphone and a tag line: BECAUSE PETS CAN'T DRIVE. The TV ads (Michael Ian Black voicing) air through 1999-2000, including a $1.2 million Super Bowl XXXIV spot in January 2000 and a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon in November 1999. The homepage version of the sock puppet is a small animated GIF, waving from the corner of the page on every product category. It is, by mid-2000, the MOST RECOGNIZED COMMERCIAL GIF of the dotcom era. It rivals the Dancing Baby (see [[dancing-baby-1996]]) in name-recognition, with the additional commercial machinery of a national ad campaign behind it. Video: The full sock-puppet ad set, including the 2000 Super Bowl spot that cost more than the company would ever earn in revenue.