Visit the Sucker Punch Saloon

Back in 1999 an internet startup that went by the name of Treeloot was looking for a way to drive some traffic to their site. In a stroke of evil marketing genius they decided to run a java-based (ugh!) banner ad featuring a frenzied monkey and a mouse controlled boxing glove. It stated simply, “PUNCH THE MONKEY AND WIN $20!”. The web now had it’s first interactive click-tease style advertisement; and boy were we pissed about it. Java applets have never been especially quick loading or browser-friendly. But using one for a heavily broadcasted banner ad was a gutsy move and it paid off well for Treeloot, if not for those of us who waited for it to load. As thousands of netizens gave in to this irritating enticement to virtually abuse the little fella, the ad quickly established a legendary reputation within the fledgling internet advertising industry.

Since then, the ad has spawned a rich legacy. Hundreds of startups and their black-hearted marketing firms have followed suit in a vain attempt to copy the punch/shoot/maim format and hence recapture some of the monkey’s success. Flash-based animation has given rise to a new generation of… flashy, fast-loading interactive ads that offer a wide vartiety of products for free, often long before they’re even available to buy. With the Monkey, the $20 offered was really just online play tokens. It lied about the prize on offer, but at least it was easily attainable… just punch the monkey. With the current generation of such ads it’s often the case that the prize is something very real but so hard, time consuming, and/or revealing of personal or otherwise valuable information that no sane person would bother trying.

Couldn’t this all have been avoided? What does it say about human nature that so many of us couldn’t resist knocking that bastard little monkey on his ass? The answer to this can only be known by studying ourselves in the mirror that these crass and loathesome pleas for attention represent. Afterall, the tasks that these ads present are like miniature psychological expirements. Some tap into the desires created by very specific sociocultural circumstances. Others, not so much. In the interest of investigating these questions I present to you the Sucker Punch Saloon.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 25th, 2005 at 4:45 pm and is filed under general, advertising, monkey, flash, gallery, project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.