When:
The first Sunday in September

Where:
Everywhere

First occurrence:
.?.

It was somewhere around this time in 1975 that  advertising executive Gary Ross Dahl performed an
ultimate feat of advertising when he introduced the Pet Rock.
A pop culture phenomenon that we still know today.

Basically he simply sold Mexican beach rocks,
cleaned and slightly polished.
But the real gimmick was in the presentation.
Each rock came in a box with handles and breathing holes,
like those used for animals from a pet store.
Inside was the stone sitting on a bed of straw.
Complete with a 32 page manual that gave surprisingly complete instructions for how to care for the pet rock.
The manual was illustrated and considered quite punny.

The pet rock became a huge hit during the 1975 holiday season.
Until people got tired of the joke, or decided they liked the
challenge of taming wild rocks into pet rock better.

Gary became a millionaire from selling all those pet rocks.
He decided to live a bit easier running a bar and would later write “Advertising for Dummies”.

“I do not know how I may seem to others,
but to myself
I am only a small child
wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge,
every now and then finding a small bright pebble
to be contented with.”
(Plato)

#PetRockDay

• https://doodlewash.com/pet-rock-day/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock
• http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The-Care-and-Training-of-Your-Pet-Rock-Manual-by-Gary-Dahl.pdf