Having rescued about 5,000 photos from my father-in-law’s dying eMac over the holidays, this clever ad for Verbatim portable hard drives caught my attention when I saw it on AgencySpy today.

The problem is that both URLs that appear in the video—Verbatim.com and Facebook.com/VerbatimUS—took me to a netherworld of knotty information, none of which related directly to the ad or product.

Unfortunately, this “catch-and-release” syndrome is still far too common in advertising, allowing a lot of interested prospects to swim downstream without ever making a purchase.

Hey, Verbatim’s ad agency, why not take to me to a site with a Converse-clad coffee cup, a CLON hard drive, and a great big button that says “buy me now for under $100”? Now that would genuinely be creative. 

(Oh, by the way, searching “Clon” on Verbatim’s website returns zero results. What’s up with that?)