Scary Advertising Stories

Let's say, for a minute, that we're all back in 1995.

It being 1995, barely anyone, barely anywhere knows what you mean when you tell them that you're going to start a company that would create websites on the Internet. Your parents don't know what you're talking about. Your friends furrow their brows a bit and scratch their heads. Your partners in this venture, however, believe that someday soon, everyone everywhere will spend their days pretending to work and looking at sites that designed by your new company.

Thing is, you've got to find some clients. This is 1995, Netscape hasn't gone public yet. AOL is still behind closed walls and your cell phone could still be hard wired to your car.

When the phone rings and a friendly voice says that they work with the local small business newspaper and can get your marketing message into the hands of all their tens of thousands of subscribers, your ears perk up.

What could be wrong about spending a little money to make a little money. You arrange a meeting. They give you the schpeel: the media kit, the sample newspapers, the names of companies you respect who already do business with them, the possibility of free press and of course the ad sizes that you'll have to buy to get in the game.

After you've had a chance to think it through, you decide to go ahead. To just spend the money you had intended for a different purpose and try to get some new business. They say you can have the full page, back page of the newspaper. Color too, if you want. You send in the contract and the Photoshop'd advertisement file and you await a proof.

The proof of the ad comes back and you think you're happy. Everything looks the way it should, even with all the problems they had understanding how to manage Photoshop files. Your partners aren't thrilled that the money's going toward advertising instead of infrastructure, but they understand the reasoning behind the decision.

And then you wait.

The ad isn't supposed to run until Monday. You'll get your stack of papers on Friday afternoon. You wait.

Eventually, the knock of the door brings a courier with a package. You it open and turn over the first issue and see your first advertisement.

Your ad. Perfectly proportioned on the page. Exactly the copy you wanted, exactly the colors you decided. Exactly the positioning you'd discussed.

Except.

Except the full page ad that you sent over somehow became a 3 x 2 1/2 inch ad in the middle of a full blank page. Right in the center, in little tiny letters, you could make out the name of your company. Just below, in little tiny numbers, you could read the phone number. The full page ad that you hoped would introduce your company to the world, instead barely whispered your name.

And the ad sales people never called to tell you just how dumb it looked.

It was as if they only wanted you to buy into their story about their publication, and didn't care at all what happened after they cashed your check