Brand Marketing

I can’t say I ever had the desire to take a vacation on a dude ranch, but Peter Askew’s development of DudeRanch.com made that an appealing thought. Over the years, Peter shared photos and stories about his development of the brand he built, and I found myself researching a dude ranch vacation with my family.

Nearly a month ago, Peter mentioned that he was considering the sale of the domain name and business. Yesterday, Peter followed-up indicating the business was sold for an undisclosed amount. The deal was closed via the Quiet Light brokerage:

The Super Bowl was played last night, and a great deal of attention was on the Super Bowl commercials. In the recent past, domain names played a more minor role in the commercials, but that was not the case this year. There were quite a few standout domain names that played a prominent role.

I counted five exceptional domain names that were featured in Super Bowl commercials this year. I posted the commercials with the domain names below. I also posted a poll on X to see which domain name people like best:

Three weeks ago, Samba.com sold for $143,000 in a NameJet expiry auction. Samba.com is an exceptional domain name, and there are many branded companies that would benefit from owning it. At $143k, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that an aggressive domain investor acquired the domain name to be a portfolio asset. That doesn’t appear to have happened.

Samba.com now redirects to Samba.tv, the primary domain name of Samba TV, an analytics company specializing in television audience insights. Backed by substantial venture funding, Samba TV’s technology is integrated into numerous smart TVs, allowing advertisers to deliver more relevant ads and personalize content recommendations based on viewing habits.

Liquidity Group, a company that is billed “as a leading AI-driven direct lender operating a multibillion-dollar portfolio globally,” made a significant domain name upgrade. Liquidity Group acquired the Liquidity.com domain name. It had been using LiquidityGroup.com for its web presence. The company appears to use the shorter “Liquidity” in much of its branding.

In a press release announcing the domain name acquisition and transition to Liquidity.com, it was shared that the domain name had a seven figure price tag. Unfortunately, the exact price of the domain name was not shared by the company so we will not see it listed in the sale charts maintained by DNJournal or NameBio.

In September, I reported on the sale of the Rocket.com domain name. Rocket.com was sold for an undisclosed amount of money in a deal overseen by Andrew Miller of Hilco Digital. Following the sale, the domain name was transferred to CSC under Whois privacy, leaving the identity of the buyer unknown.

I have been periodically visiting Rocket.com and checking for any Whois or nameserver updates to try and learn who acquired the domain name. This morning, a new landing page appeared on the domain name, and the buyer has been revealed – Rocket Companies, Inc.