More worrisome to Madison Avenue is that
many dot-coms aren't interested in
building brands that will last. Many
simply want to generate enough buzz to
jump-start an initial public offering.
Some companies don't care what happens
after that. Susan Smith Ellis, director
of integrated marketing at BBDO, tells a
story of asking a potential client what
it would like to do for its customer.
She says the company's execs answered,
"Customer? Who cares about the customer?
We just want to go public."
This is the juiciest quote (BTW, BBDO declined the account), but there's
plenty of other food for thought --- among other things, an interesting
description of the dogfight in pet web sites. The article is at:
http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/1999/12/06/mad.html
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