History of the Trunkmonkey

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Contents

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Timeline

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January 14, 2000 — First post about the Trunkmonkey

On January 14, 2000, Sean Sosik-Hamor posted a parody rumor on the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club (NASIOC) Forum hinting that the upcoming version of the Subaru Impreza WRX would included a trained monkey that lived in the truck of the car to help with vehicle performance. The joke quickly gained momentum and the Trunkmonkey instantly became an unofficial cult mascot of NASIOC. After a few weeks, the Trunkmonkey concept had quickly spread to all regional club forums and had become a piece of everyday conversation.

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March 23, 2000 — Trunkmonkey.com registered

On March 23, 2000, the Trunkmonkey.com domain name was registered to start up a Web site dedicated to the rumor which Sean designed, authored, and maintained.

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July 14, 2000 — First Trunkmonkey logos posted

On July 14, 2000, Sean posted an initial sketch of the Trunkmonkey logo as well as a proposed design for a windshield banner for the Subaru Impreza.

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August 18, 2000 — First photos taken of the Trunkmonkey

On August 18, 2000, Sean took the first photos of his Subaru Impreza with Trunkmonkey Racing decals on it along with his Trunkmonkey posing in the back seat with a mechanic's toolkit.

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August 20, 2001 — TrunkmonkeyRacing.com registered

On August 20, 2001, Sean registered TrunkmonkeyRacing.com as an official Web site for Trunkmonkey Racing, his motorsports team.

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January 26, 2003

On January 26, 2003 (Super Bowl Sunday), Sean started receiving various e-mails, calls, and forum private messages from online friends on the West Coast asking him if he had anything to do with the Trunk Monkey Super Bowl advertisement for Suburban Auto Group that had aired in the Portland, Oregon market. A few days later, a NASIOC member on the West Coast digitized and posted a copy of the Suburban Auto Group Trunk Monkey advertisement. Initially flattered by the attention that the Trunkmonkey had received, Sean posted a copy of the video on Trunkmonkey.com.

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March 11, 2003 — First contact with R/West

In early March, 2003, Sean left voicemail for R/West, the ad agency that created the Trunk Monkey ad campaign, and Jessa Barnes returned Sean's inquiry via e-mail on March 11, 2003. In a series of e-mails and phone calls Jessa stated that R/West had come up with the idea for the Trunk Monkey ad campaign on their own during a brainstorming session after the initial proposal for a Trunk Midget ad campaign was deemed politically incorrect.

Sean explained over the phone to Jessa that he was flattered to see the idea of the Trunkmonkey go mainstream and that, even though he came up with the concept of the Trunkmonkey two years previous, he would have no problem with the future development of the ad campaign given two criteria:

  1. Credit be somehow given that Sean had come up with the original Trunkmonkey concept.
  2. R/West and Suburban Auto Group make no attempts in the future to prevent Sean's use of the Trunkmonkey name, brand, or concept.
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Braindump

The Trunkmonkey.com domain name was registered on March 23, 2000 to start up a Web site dedicated to the joke, which Sean designed. As news of Trunkmonkey.com spread, NASIOC members started purchasing stuffed monkeys and mounting them in various locations in their cars. Sean created a photo gallery, and members started submitting photos of their Trunkmonkeys in various poses. Kris Marciniak, founder of the New England Subaru Impreza Club (NESIC), then created two Trunkmonkey cartoons on July 20, 2000 that portrayed the Trunkmonkey as a performance accessory, mechanic, and security system.

As news of Trunkmonkey.com spread, NASIOC club members started purchasing stuffed monkeys and mounting them in various locations of their Subarus.

Shortly thereafter, Sean formed an amateur motorsports team aptly named Trunkmonkey Racing and later registered the TrunkmonkeyRacing.com domain name on August 20, 2001. Initial logos of the Trunkmonkey were designed which showed a silhouette of a monkey wielding a wrench in an aggressive posture. Vinyl automotive decals of the Trunkmonkey logo and Trunkmonkey Racing text were then produced and sold via the Web and in-person at various amateur motorsports events.

Over the course of 2001 and 2002, Trunkmonkey Racing became more serious, recruited multiple drivers and co-drivers, and built three race cars for autocross, rallycross, ice racing, and rally competition. A few other race teams and amateur motorsports drivers became honorary affiliates and displayed Trunkmonkey regalia on their cars as part of their sponsorship packages.



As news of the Trunk Monkey advertisements spread across the Web, Trunkmonkey.com started receiving thousands of hits as people searched for and e-mailed around links to the video. A few weeks later, someone from Suburban Auto Group downloaded the video from Trunkmonkey.com and posted it on SuburbanAutoGroup.com.

Sean started calling Suburban Auto Group in February of 2003 to get more information about the Trunk Monkey advertisements. He explained that he was the original creator of the Trunkmonkey concept and would like contact information for their ad agency to find out how the Trunk Monkey advertisements were conceived and produced. The secretary was initially very rude saying that she was happy that they were first to the punch with such a great ad campaign, and said that she'd pass the message on to a manager. A day or two later, the manager of the dealership got back to Sean and passed on contact information for R/West, the agency that produced the campaign.



About a year later, Sean found out that four more Trunk Monkey advertisements had been produced by R/West, and the voiceover at the end had been changed to "the Trunk Monkey - a revolutionary idea you'll only find at Suburban Auto Group". Suburban Auto Group's Web site had also been changed to say that they were "the home of the Trunk Monkey". Sean archived copies of the five videos on Trunkmonkey.com to show that the voiceover had been changed to claim that they were the original creators of the Trunk Monkey.

Shortly after archiving the videos and modifying the Trunkmonkey Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to link to the videos, traffic for Trunkmonkey.com skyrocketed as people found the site while searching for the four new Trunk Monkey advertisements. Trunkmonkey.com now receives between 1500 and 3500 unique visitors per day totaling 20000 to 50000 hits and 6 GB to 30 GB of throughput per day.

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Related Web Sites

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Historical Records and Archives

  • First Trunk Monkey Post (01/14/2000) Unfortunately, this post was inadvertently deleted from the club forum during a database cleanup. This link is to the archived page at Archive.org and only includes the first page. I have offline archives of the first five pages of responses saved up through April 10, 2001.
  • Archive.org Archive of Trunkmonkey.com (09/15/2000-06/23/2003) This is the Archive.org archive of Trunkmonkey.com dating back to September 15, 2000. This will show that the FAQ that describes the Trunkmonkey in detail was originally written in 2000.
  • Trunkmonkey Logo Sketches (07/14/2000) This is the first posting I made showing the logos. There are also photos of the vinyl decals on the car taken 08/18/2000.
  • Trunk Monkey Cartoons (07/20/2000) Cartoons of the Trunk Monkey by Kris Marciniak.
  • Trunkmonkeys in Action Photos of Trunkmonkeys submitted by fans. These photos range in dates from 2000 through the present.
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Proof of Record

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