Reaching Our Target Market

Retailers originally showed little interest in Harold von Braunhut’s Instant Life® pet creation. Wham-O’s preceding product, Instant Fish, had not performed well with consumers and, thus, quickly didn’t perform well with retailers. Department stores were naturally weary of stocking another instant-pet failure.

Instead of throwing in the towel, Harold took his powdered pet creation directly to his target audience — the kids through ads in silver and bronze age comic books. That turned out to be the perfect combination and mail-order sales skyrocketed. The more ads Harold ran, the more Sea-Monkey® sales rolled in which resulted in more income. His tenacious nature to not give up ultimately launched his mail-order empire.

Here’s a look at some of the Sea-Monkey® ads that appeared in comic books from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s. These ads are largely responsible for Sea-Monkeys® becoming the cultural icon we know today.