On Christmas morning of 1975, at least 1.3 million people became the proud owners of a Pet Rock. The Pet Rock was a craze that rivaled things like the Hula-Hoop and was even less explainable. Newsweek called the fad “one of the most ridiculously successful marketing schemes ever.” What this fad consisted of was a rock — a plain, ordinary, egg shaped rock like you could dig up in almost any back yard. But during the Christmas season of 1975, more than a million people paid $3.95 for such a rock.
The genius of the idea was in the packaging. Each Pet Rock came in a cardboard carrying case, complete with air holes, tenderly nestled on a bed of nesting straw. But the masterstroke of the marketing scheme was the accompanying manual on the care, feeding and house training of Pet Rocks. The 32-page booklet described how to teach your new pet basic commands such as “Stay,” “Sit,” and “Play Dead.” The rocks learned these tricks quickly, but more complicated commands such as “Come” required extraordinary patience on the part of the trainer. One entry in the manual read, “If, when you remove the rock from its box it appears to be excited, place it on some old newspapers. The rock will know what the paper is for and will require no further instruction. It will remain on the paper until you remove it.”
So who came up with such a brilliant idea and how did he think of it? The man behind the scheme was Gary Dahl — often described as a marketing genius and a swindler or con man. Mr. Dahl’s brainstorm came to him in a bar in his home town of Los Gatos in Northern California. At the time, he was a freelance copywriter (he said that was another word for being broke.) One night in the bar, the talk turned to pets and complaints about troublesome animals. During that conversation, Dahl announced that his pet caused him no such trouble. He explained that he had a pet rock. After making the statement, he realized he just might be on to something with pet rocks.
He recruited a couple of investors and visited a building-supply store and bought a load of smooth Mexican beach stones for about a penny apiece.
Pet Rocks were the must-have gift of the 1975 Christmas season, but they rapidly went the way of all fads. Even though Mr. Dahl trademarked the name, there was nothing to stop someone from putting a rock in a box and selling it — and many did.
In the year 2000, attempts to recreate the magic of the Pet Rock, or take it a step further, with Rock Concerts or Rock Families (some had google eyes glued onto the rocks) all pretty much fell flat. The Pet Rocks were packaged and sold with very minimal changes to the original design. One interesting omission in the manual included with the 2000 revision of the Pet Rocks was the “Attack” command. The 1975 manual told owners when confronted by a mugger, they should “Reach into your pocket or purse and extract your pet rock. Shout the command “attack” and bash the mugger’s head in.” Obviously that type of language and action was considered unacceptable by the year 2000.
None of the revived sales strategies worked … Pet Rocks enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame in 1975, but since that initial, legendary success all attempts to re-market Pet Rocks have failed.
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