The day the brands died

Wed, 11 Jul 2001 19:53:00 +0000

In recent months, newspapers have devoted hundreds of column inches to the economic, social and sartorial impact of the dot-com collapse. Top-flight reporters have been dispatched to Silicon Valley to document the pathos of the boarded-up lofts, the shuttered trattorias, the boy millionaires who have gone back to working at Starbucks. But one aspect of the crash has gone unexplored: the effect of the death of so many brands on consumers themselves.

A year and a half ago, at the height of the e-commerce spending spree, Internet companies invested enormous sums of money in making an impression on the public. Over $3.1 billion was spent on offline advertising alone, a land grab for consumer "mindshare" unprecedented in marketing history. Unlike traditional companies, which build brands over time through a combination of advertising, in-store experience and product quality, the dot-coms attempted instant branding. As Brian Mulhern, advertising director for Outpost.com, told the New York Times in 1999, "First and foremost, the job of dot-com advertising is to gain top-of-mind awareness."

Salon.com > Robin Danielson Hafitz

The day the brands died