goodtimes.pm poster - beginning of the end?

[ojlewis]

Just seen a bus stop poster for drinkaware using the weird tld of .pm (promoting the app at the bottom of the poster)

http://c3322972.r72.cf0.rackcdn.com/42569_DA_A3 Poster_TellingAJoke (2).jpg

With the .uk and the new gTLD issues that are coming in next year I've always thought before that a proliferation of wacky tlds like .biz .eu and even .tv make .com and .co.uk even stronger but it occurred to me when advertisers start getting into using these kinds of tlds which they might because it's more 'creative', the public will stop assuming it ends with com or co.uk the whole game is up and it only takes them seeing a dozen such posters with .pm .nike .radio .loans that the penny drops that they have to check the ending. So what do they do? Probably just hit Google and as long as Google knows what they are looking it's okay. But for domaining, a catastrophe?

 

[stellar73]

bizarre! I had to just look up what .pm was, apparently it's a country code....

Their site is actually just forwarding to their facebook page and they have facebook.com/goodtimes anyway so god knows why they didn't just use that

 

[murph]

The search engines will be the winners from all this, lets just hope the playing field evens up...

 

[Bailey]

Advertisers have always (and will continue) to look for "Stickys " or "Hooks"

An element that 'Anchors' a single part of a wider message in the mind. (Quite often the smaller the Hook the bigger the Anchor)

It's really no different from the concept of a memorable tune , the shorter the Melody - the more memorable it becomes.

Goodtimes. PM (as in the evening-time) is a great Hook. Would have made for a great Club Scene advert. (which is DrinkAwares probable target audience in this particular instance) Linking it to facebook, also makes sense, given its main audience age group.

This type of advertising has been around longer than your parents, so don't worry about it taking over the world of the internet.

PS We could also go into the Subtleties of the "learnt-Link" of advertising, But, that may be taking above some heads

 

[websaway]

Just seen a bus stop poster for drinkaware using the weird tld of .pm (promoting the app at the bottom of the poster)

http://c3322972.r72.cf0.rackcdn.com/42569_DA_A3 Poster_TellingAJoke (2).jpg

With the .uk and the new gTLD issues that are coming in next year I've always thought before that a proliferation of wacky tlds like .biz .eu and even .tv make .com and .co.uk even stronger but it occurred to me when advertisers start getting into using these kinds of tlds which they might because it's more 'creative', the public will stop assuming it ends with com or co.uk the whole game is up and it only takes them seeing a dozen such posters with .pm .nike .radio .loans that the penny drops that they have to check the ending. So what do they do? Probably just hit Google and as long as Google knows what they are looking it's okay. But for domaining, a catastrophe?

Not so sure about .com but the uk namespace will be damaged and that leaves possibilities for it's competitors.

Why would any retail buyer buy a new .uk when they have to also buy the co.uk

the lunatics are running the asylum.

 

[ojlewis]

This type of advertising has been around longer than your parents, so don't worry about it taking over the world of the internet

Yes, probably true which may mean that the internet is finally catching up with the way things are done in the 'other world' - the norms are set by the advertisers with money and the creatives that spend it rather than ICANN/Nominet or SEO consultants.

I'm not saying it will 'take over the internet' but may massively destabilise domaining by creating enough tld confusion among consumers that the bottom drops out. I can see brands thinking why should we buy a pricey .com or .co.uk when our customers no longer see it as a default or sign of prestige?

 

[ojlewis]

Why would any retail buyer buy a new .uk when they have to also buy the co.uk

the lunatics are running the asylum.

The point is that they don't have to buy the .co.uk. They just invest in promoting the dot whatever they go with and eventually (3-5 years?) consumers will generally learn that there is no default tld any more.

The dot becomes a different form of punctuation - a space rather than a full stop.

So who are the winners? The advertising/SEO agencies whose job it will be to make sure people think cheap.loans is a better site than cheaploans.com/co.uk

And as @murph says of course - the search engines.

 

[Bailey]

Yes, probably true which may mean that the internet is finally catching up with the way things ..........

The Goodtimes 'dot' PM is clever from a number of angles.

Some Domainers will unfortunately try to be word clever with the ending of words using extensions - some will work (probably less than 1% of those registered) And it's the same with Advertising there is only so much 'Good Ground' to be had..

The internet is a "slogan makers" dream But, the vast majority of word plays need a 'Static physical presence' to be effective - As in The Bus-stop advert. And that's outside most budgets.

Even the bus-stops would've have been chosen for their proximity and usage by late night revellers

 

[cc976a]

Most people find the sites they need through Google just by typing in the sites name.

I don't know of many who type in domains any longer.

Google doesn't in general display other country TLDs for UK results - this could be a main limitation right now, but clever TLDs plus the proposed own brand extensions will change things.

Domains will be bought and sold, and like most things the domain industry will just develop and will just stop being about .co.uk in the main.

 

[GreyWing]

This is what I wrote after Frank Shilling posted about how good these things will be....... It revolves about these things going bust shortly after launch. I wrote it about 6 months ago on the that.co.uk blog but took it down when the site changed aims.

--------------------

Just seen an article online from Frank Schilling and have decided to file it under "Nonsense". I won't link to it because it is so off the chart I can only think that it is some sort of link bait. It relates to the launching of new extensions with .anything after the domain name. How they will grow and rival the .com.

More comedy, sounds like certain domainers are trying to sell new domains before they are even out, "bring in the next sucker I want to sell them something". These people should be ashamed of themselves and milking more and more money out of suckers on garbage extensions by creating a here today gone tomorrow bubble. We have seen it many times with .co's, .tel's, .mobi's. These domainers create a bubble, suck in the idiots and then on to the next bubble. Sounds like what is going on here already.

You can't blame the media on the fate of these .anything, most of them are not clued up enough to know any different. But these guys are in the industry and that's what makes it worse.

There will be very very few .brands that don't have their .com's as a safety net. Maybe some will run and advertise on their .brand but they will do so knowing that they have the back up of not sending their customers to the .com owner of their .brand

I can't wait to see the first advertising campaign running a .brand when they don't have the .com as back up. The leakage is going to be immense and the .com owner will be laughing all the way to the bank.

He hasn't factored into this the one big effing elephant in the room... The maths don't add up to maintain .anything and one will go bust within two years bringing the whole show crashing to the ground.

The cost is £130k to ICANN tostart with in application fees, £15k a year in fees to ICANN to maintain the show. That is before staff and computers are brought into effect, servers, etc.

So lets say a company had .loans which could be one of the best of the lot... How many words can you stick infront of .loan to make a commercially useful name? 1000 tops and that is being generous. So if they wanted to sell domains that ended in .loans to businesses, we can do a couple of sums to work out what is going on.

So a customer would pay on average and lets be really generous here, £1k on average per name in some sort of landrush phase. That is £1m pound of quick cash they just got in. Happy days for that registry owner, they are currently £850k ahead. Now what? they have to make back £15k per year in fees just to pay ICANN their subscriptions. That is £15 per domain name per year across the 1000 domains. Now you have to factor in staff, support, infrastructure. That is before we even get near profits...

They'd have to charge £300 per domain per year to just about break even. £500 per domain to make a meagre profit.

They have £850k in the bank upfront, one suggest that they ain't going to be hanging around trying to run the thing for a few quid a year and a load of hassle. Next stop, registry goes into admin and bankruptcy. Some may be correct in saying that they need to pay three years fees of 15k upfront as a deposit. But it is a rolliong 15k, so the owner of the registry still needs to pay 15k to ICANN every year for fees to maintain the 3 year deposit. What can ICANN do with the at most 3 years worrth of fees (45k) to save and run the registry?

So the registry goes offline, nobody is going to take over the extension because there is no landrush cash to be had now (unless they cancel names off domain owners on .loans and charge them more to keep what they already had. So those with websites on .loans are now on in a world of pain. Some may have spent many thousands on branding.

These figures would be on one of the best .anything's. Now imagine some of the worst ones and how quickly their lights go out after launch. We are going to see .anything going to ICANN to be bailed out in the same way that we see Greece going to the EU.

Get ready for an online equivalent of .Greece, .Spain . Cyprus and innocent people having their websites being removed from the network because they are no longer commercially viable to run that .ext

 

[websaway]

This is what I wrote after Frank Shilling posted about how good these things will be....... It revolves about these things going bust shortly after launch. I wrote it about 6 months ago on the that.co.uk blog but took it down when the site changed aims.

--------------------

Just seen an article online from Frank Schilling and have decided to file it under "Nonsense". I won't link to it because it is so off the chart I can only think that it is some sort of link bait. It relates to the launching of new extensions with .anything after the domain name. How they will grow and rival the .com.

More comedy, sounds like certain domainers are trying to sell new domains before they are even out, "bring in the next sucker I want to sell them something". These people should be ashamed of themselves and milking more and more money out of suckers on garbage extensions by creating a here today gone tomorrow bubble. We have seen it many times with .co's, .tel's, .mobi's. These domainers create a bubble, suck in the idiots and then on to the next bubble. Sounds like what is going on here already.

You can't blame the media on the fate of these .anything, most of them are not clued up enough to know any different. But these guys are in the industry and that's what makes it worse.

There will be very very few .brands that don't have their .com's as a safety net. Maybe some will run and advertise on their .brand but they will do so knowing that they have the back up of not sending their customers to the .com owner of their .brand

I can't wait to see the first advertising campaign running a .brand when they don't have the .com as back up. The leakage is going to be immense and the .com owner will be laughing all the way to the bank.

He hasn't factored into this the one big effing elephant in the room... The maths don't add up to maintain .anything and one will go bust within two years bringing the whole show crashing to the ground.

The cost is £130k to ICANN tostart with in application fees, £15k a year in fees to ICANN to maintain the show. That is before staff and computers are brought into effect, servers, etc.

So lets say a company had .loans which could be one of the best of the lot... How many words can you stick infront of .loan to make a commercially useful name? 1000 tops and that is being generous. So if they wanted to sell domains that ended in .loans to businesses, we can do a couple of sums to work out what is going on.

So a customer would pay on average and lets be really generous here, £1k on average per name in some sort of landrush phase. That is £1m pound of quick cash they just got in. Happy days for that registry owner, they are currently £850k ahead. Now what? they have to make back £15k per year in fees just to pay ICANN their subscriptions. That is £15 per domain name per year across the 1000 domains. Now you have to factor in staff, support, infrastructure. That is before we even get near profits...

They'd have to charge £300 per domain per year to just about break even. £500 per domain to make a meagre profit.

They have £850k in the bank upfront, one suggest that they ain't going to be hanging around trying to run the thing for a few quid a year and a load of hassle. Next stop, registry goes into admin and bankruptcy. Some may be correct in saying that they need to pay three years fees of 15k upfront as a deposit. But it is a rolliong 15k, so the owner of the registry still needs to pay 15k to ICANN every year for fees to maintain the 3 year deposit. What can ICANN do with the at most 3 years worrth of fees (45k) to save and run the registry?

So the registry goes offline, nobody is going to take over the extension because there is no landrush cash to be had now (unless they cancel names off domain owners on .loans and charge them more to keep what they already had. So those with websites on .loans are now on in a world of pain. Some may have spent many thousands on branding.

These figures would be on one of the best .anything's. Now imagine some of the worst ones and how quickly their lights go out after launch. We are going to see .anything going to ICANN to be bailed out in the same way that we see Greece going to the EU.

Get ready for an online equivalent of .Greece, .Spain . Cyprus and innocent people having their websites being removed from the network because they are no longer commercially viable to run that .ext

I think your model for .loans would only be correct if they were 15 year old idiots running it.
You need to look at what a customer is worth to a business, something when looking at domain values most people overlook.
People on here are often guided by the online sales experience, you rank, they visit, they buy, they go.
Take a solicitor for example, a client can be worth thousands or even millions over a period of time.

 

[GreyWing]

Sorry mate I don't get you in general. Maybe we are confused over each others points...

What I'm saying is that to these registries there is no money in running these .ext's, the money is all in the landrush phase. Once they have filled their pockets at landrush, there is little real point in running the registries for domain owners. They'll go bankrupt and do a runner leaving domain owners on their extension to complain to who.

To me it's a mathematical certainty that some of these extensions goes bust in the first 3 years. Once one goes bust and takes domains on it to the grave, the majority of the others will fail to.

I'm on about the ones that aim to sell space to third parties, not .google of course.

The uk.com whilst slightly different is a good example of building a brand on unsteady ground and paying the price.

 

[websaway]

Sorry mate I don't get you in general. Maybe we are confused over each others points...

What I'm saying is that to these registries there is no money in running these .ext's, the money is all in the landrush phase. Once they have filled their pockets at landrush, there is little real point in running the registries for domain owners. They'll go bankrupt and do a runner leaving domain owners on their extension to complain to who.

To me it's a mathematical certainty that some of these extensions goes bust in the first 3 years. Once one goes bust and takes domains on it to the grave, the majority of the others will fail to.

I'm on about the ones that aim to sell space to third parties, not .google of course.

The uk.com whilst slightly different is a good example of building a brand on unsteady ground and paying the price.

yes I do see your point on sucking speculators in initially.

 

[Bailey]

I'm not quite sure what the last couple of comments have to do with the original post and the use of a "French dependant Islands domain extension" being used by the "DrinkAwares Christmas campaign" To get the message across to young people.

DrinkAware is a £5 million a year Charity financed by the Drinks Industry. Domains being used this way (Campaigns) are only meant to have a short-lifespan.

Ps I'm not doubting the accuracy of any of the above posts - just its relevancy to the original intention of the advertising agency to use "Goodtimes dot PM" to associate with young people at time of risk.

looking at the advert does actually point to PM being used as an acronym for "Photo message" or "Post Message" - still clever. it's the old boy in me that read it as "PM = afternoon/evening"

Shame they only used it as a small footnote to the poster

 

[GreyWing]

I'm not quite sure what the last couple of comments have to do with the original post and the use of a "French dependant Islands domain extension" being used by the "DrinkAwares Christmas campaign" To get the message across to young people.

DrinkAware is a £5 million a year Charity financed by the Drinks Industry. Domains being used this way (Campaigns) are only meant to have a short-lifespan.

Ps I'm not doubting the accuracy of any of the above posts - just its relevancy to the original intention of the advertising agency to use "Goodtimes dot PM" to associate with young people at time of risk.

Have you read the title of this thread or the first question? If you have I'm a little confused mate.

 

[tifosi]

To many of these new 'brand' TLD's making a profit and selling commercially won't even be on their radar. They will be purely private tlds for use in house, with their franchisees, and most of all for quick hit marketing.

The costs of becoming the registrar and annual costs will be a drop in the ocean to their traditional advertising budgets.

 

[Bailey]

Have you read the title of this thread or the first question? If you have I'm a little confused mate.

Yep, I've re-read it to, and probably just a difference of Interpretation Greywing, can't actually see a question more a statement of belief, in this case stemming from the use of the PM extension, which as you mention the title of the thread - I attempted to Clarify from the users perspective.

Added-
(However, I do accept there's a ? there at the end, which I must have missed)

 

[ojlewis]

Yep, I've re-read it to, and probably just a difference of Interpretation Greywing, can't actually see a question more a statement of belief, in this case stemming from the use of the PM extension, which as you mention the title of the thread - I attempted to Clarify from the users perspective.

Added-
(However, I do accept there's a ? there at the end, which I must have missed)

Yes definitely a question rather than a statement.

But the evidence (circumstantial admittedly) is stacking up. I went out to central London this evening and happened to see a huge poster on the Tube platform for a computer game - the main url was worldoftanks.eu. The next poster along, had the url bl.uk and next to that was an .ac.uk. In the lift was a poster promoting hivtest.me (or similar). Yes some of these are campaign based and it doesn't mean the main tlds are dead at all - but will they stay premium enough to support domaining in the medium-long term?

It seems that the logical progression is that all a brand has to do is to protect its trademark then it essentially owns all the tlds by default without bothering to buy them. And the winner of that will be the IP lawyers.

 

[ojlewis]

Domains will be bought and sold, and like most things the domain industry will just develop and will just stop being about .co.uk in the main.

This sounds very true - I think that we're going to see a two tier market in which every real brand has to own their .com - as long as Facebook, Amazon, Google use .com as their flagship tld they will remain must-have properties.

Everything else is just on a nice-to-have campaign specific basis. The domaining market therefore will exist to sell wannabe big brands the .com they want (or typo variations). Existing brands will just sue you for it of they have to.

It will be acceptable to run a non .com, so many quick-hit sites (ecommerce startups etc.) with no major brand aspirations will be happy with poker.chips type domains as there will be less expectation on them owning a dot com (unless/until they get big).

Therefore .co.uk will cease to have much resale value within 5 years I bet - well, it will have value if someone really wants it but no default value.

If I owned a lot of .co.uk's I'd be having a fire sale.

If and when Facebook etc. abandon .com the game will change again but I can't see that happening in the foreseeable future.

 

[retired_member34]

Advertisers have always (and will continue) to look for "Stickys " or "Hooks"

An element that 'Anchors' a single part of a wider message in the mind. (Quite often the smaller the Hook the bigger the Anchor)

It's really no different from the concept of a memorable tune , the shorter the Melody - the more memorable it becomes.

Goodtimes. PM (as in the evening-time) is a great Hook. Would have made for a great Club Scene advert. (which is DrinkAwares probable target audience in this particular instance) Linking it to facebook, also makes sense, given its main audience age group.

This type of advertising has been around longer than your parents, so don't worry about it taking over the world of the internet.

Great post.

PS We could also go into the Subtleties of the "learnt-Link" of advertising, But, that may be taking above some heads

Yes, please do. When I started developing ecommerce sites in 2003 I used what I in my innocence considered brandable domains, normally 2 words or words and numbers combined. Then I joined here and started along the EMD route, which I now consider very limiting and rather comparable to the emperor's new clothes.

I am starting a new business in 2013 that is an ecommerce site shipping niche products to a very local area (15 mile radius), to be promoted offline just as much as online, and I am damned if I can come up with a good business name. So any recommendations you can give on how to learn these fundamentals (any good books?) would be most gratefully received.