Branding A Generic Domain

[retired_member34]

A subject that has been touched upon a few times. Did anyone see the Fast Track 100 supplement in the Sunday Times?

It highlighted the problem in branding a generic domain I think. In the same article the winner Buymobilephones.net was referred to as:

buymobilephones.net - their site
buymobiles.net - owned by them and redirects to their site
mobilephones.net - nothing to do with them

(It does appear to be doing rather nicely however...)

 

[bensd]

I also noticed the other day that phones.co.uk (which sold for £175,000 a couple of years ago) now re-directs to buymobilephones.net

 

[stevebrowne]

The main issue is just sloppy journalism. The name of the company is the name of the company. They can't just call it something different because it's close. They should write it correctly in the firsty instance, and sub editros should pick up the discrepency as well.

I mean, can you imagine them mixing up Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda when writing about supermarkets? They'd be fired.

 

[retired_member13]

I think it's down to how close the generic is to the brand identity, and also how strong the generic itself is..

I can't imagine someone messing up with Hotels.com or Bodybuilding.com, but I guess the more complex / difficult to remember the generic is the more likely it is to make a mistake - I'm having problems remembering the exact URL in question for instance as it's not in front of me while I type, but phones.co.uk is kinda hard to forget...

 

[chs]

I notice that they sponsor Derby County but use buymobiles.net on the shirt advertising, not buymobilephones.net

 

[Bailey]

Missed the Times article - I liked their website until subscription. (tight bastard that I am)

Perceived consumer choice while reinforcing message/mission statement. It's similar to many marketing strategies, some acceptable bleed providing you own most of the similar terms (or in the old days - Point of sales) and you get to play horses for courses. (two words max for football supporters - sorry I couldn't resist)

I'm not sure why anybody would identify it as a difficult marketing strategy - plenty of bases to be covered but, thats why you pay marketing

 

[Pred]

buymobilephones.net - their site

i have to say, thats one ugly bitch

im sure it does well in terms of revenue, or at least i hope it would what they spend on advertising but noone will ever come in and buy them out with a stinker like that
hope thats not their exit plan

i mean, craigslist.org has billions of hits per year no doubt and makes tens of millions, but that's one ugly biatch too (i know he owns com, but still ugly lol)