{"id":494,"date":"2026-08-24T04:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T04:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/?p=494"},"modified":"2026-08-24T04:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T04:47:10","slug":"the-man-who-sold-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/the-man-who-sold-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Sold Rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.etsystatic.com\/20386570\/r\/il\/15bd0f\/4083839544\/il_fullxfull.4083839544_5j1j.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In 1975, copywriter Gary Dahl took an object with almost no conventional product value: a smooth rock, and constructed an elaborate joke around it.<\/p>\n<p>The Pet Rock came nestled in straw inside a cardboard pet carrier with air holes. Dahl wrote an instruction manual modeled after dog-training books.<\/p>\n<p>The offer has two parts: the packaging and the actual object.<\/p>\n<p>The object was available free on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>More than a million Pet Rocks were sold for about $4 apiece (roughly $22 today). Dahl himself described what he had really packaged: a sense of humor.<\/p>\n<p>Take away Dahl&#8217;s framing and you have a rock.<\/p>\n<p>Put the framing back and you have the Pet Rock.<\/p>\n<p>The meaning wrapped around the object produced most of what people were buying.<\/p>\n<p>RW<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1975, copywriter Gary Dahl took an object with almost no conventional product value: a smooth rock, and constructed an elaborate joke around it. The Pet Rock came nestled in straw inside a cardboard pet carrier with air holes. Dahl wrote an instruction manual modeled after dog-training books. The offer has two parts: the packaging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buying-psychology","category-copywriting"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}