Pets.com

1998-2000

With the Internet bubble booming and some big name investors like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Pets.com expected massive success with their innovation to sell pet supplies online. An expensive Super Bowl ad, centered around a lovable sock puppet, generated fantastic brand awareness. But people still didn’t buy pet stuff online. During its first year, the company spent $11.8 million on advertising but generated a revenue of only $619,000. In panic, Pets.com tried to attract customers with even lower prices and free shipping. You don’t have to be a financial genius to understand that selling a heavy bag of dog food at a loss and then shipping it for free doesn’t make good business sense. The company was put to sleep two years after it started. 

Ironically, the sock puppet mascot remained a celebrity even after the company folded. When asked in a TV-interview if he had any advice for the investment community, he replied, “Don’t invest in dotcoms.” The puppet has become the ultimate symbol of what went wrong in the Internet 1.0 bubble era.

Additional info:
Wikipedia
Cnet.com – Pets.com latest high-profile dot-com disaster
Tedium – All Sock Puppets Go To Heaven

The ads that made the puppet famous!!