Milwaukee-based digital agency Laughlin/Constable is getting sued for ruining a website, BoomerTowne.com, and Herschel “Buzz” Peddicord’s life. Here’s the story:
Boomertowne.com was a site where baby boomers could get information, connect with others, and earn some extra cash by earning points by interacting with the community. These points could last be cashed in for gift cards with Visa or at retailers such as Target. In April 2007, BoomerTowne.com had 723,000 unique visitors, but the site went belly up in September leaving visitors without their promised credit cards. One small sample of the enormous online backlash to BoomerTowne’s failure to pay up can be found here.
Peddicord blames his advertising agency, Laughlin/Constable, for misleading him on how much money the site could make. Can you believe it? Owners and investors were trusting an ad agency for financial projections? As stupid as that sounds, it’s apparently, what happened. Peddicord says he was just the idea guy. Really now… no court of law should believe that a CEO trusted their ad agency to figure out a profit and loss statement.
“The lawsuit is frivolous, and we will vigorously defend it,” said Michael Pflughoeft, vice president of public relations for Laughlin/Constable.
Damn straight it’s frivolous. If you can’t determine your own financial structure, you have no business being in business.