Half.com, Oregon Where Art Thou?

I am fascinated/repulsed by the lengths marketers will go to promote a brand. One stunt I frequently mention to my students is about a town was named after a website, but until now I never thought about what happened next. William Drenttel at Design Observer found out:

Back in late 1999, the town of Halfway, Oregon wasn't looking for a sponsor. But a then-new internet startup called Half.com was looking for a gimmick — or, as Joshua Kopelman (Half.com's CEO) called it, "recognition as 'out-of-the-box' thinkers." They offered the town complicated packages (stock, internet access, free giveaways at the annual rodeo), and an implied series of long-term benefits, including a call center located right in town that would have translated to new jobs. In the end, the town received $110,000, 20 computers for its school, and a free town website. Today, nearly a decade later, the town site is no longer functional — for, as Kopelman himself notes: "This is the Net, and all contracts are short-term contracts." (One should remember the timeline: the deal with Halfway was approved in December 1999, and the $300+ million sale to eBay was in June 2000, making this perhaps the most cost-effective PR stunt in American history.)

Read the entire article here.