Unique Marketing from NewOrleans.com

Elliot Silver
-
8

I was running on the treadmill at the gym yesterday evening when I saw something pretty cool on television that I wanted to share with you. The Wheel of Fortune “prize puzzle” revealed the phrase, “tubas, trumpets, and trombones,” and the prize had something to do with the puzzle.

My immediate thought was jazz music and my second thought was that the winner would win a trip to my favorite US city, New Orleans. Not only was I correct, but I almost fell off the treadmill when I saw that it was sponsored by my friends at NewOrleans.com. I later learned that NewOrleans.com also sponsored a prize on The Price is Right (video above).

I spoke with Don Jones, co-owner of NewOrleans.com, and he offered some information about the sponsorship and its effect on traffic. “We get a great deal of lift from these national programs with exposure to many millions of folks that watch regularly. With a great, branded top-level Geodomain it works even better. The basic sponsorship is reasonable and the company also has to pay for airfare, hotel, and dining.”

I think this is a great opportunity for companies with descriptive domain names, especially geographic domain names in tourist-friendly cities. Not only does it help build the brand in the United States, but it also tells local businesses the company is intent on promoting the city of New Orleans. Seems like a win/win.

The caveat is this isn’t a short-term or one-off deal. The company, together with its Vegas.com partner, has a long-term deal to offer vacation packages on these game shows.

Don offered to provide more details, including analytics when he has them. It’s a unique marketing and branding opportunity that might be interesting to explore.

.CO Gets (Free) NASCAR Exposure

Elliot Silver
-
44

Brandt is an agriculture company that “helps farmers mitigate risk.” The company recently changed its website url to Brandt.CO, and it appears that they are using their NASCAR sponsorship to get the word out. As you can see, the new url is prominently located on the hood of the #31 car, driven by  Justin Allgaier (photo from Brandt racing website).

Last year, the car’s hood only said “Brandt Professional Agriculture” and this year, the Brandt.CO url sits in front of the “Professional Agriculture” tagline. Now if only the racing team would ditch the long, hyphenated brandt-inc-racing.com domain name for its website, the company would be better off.

Interestingly, Brandt.com is owned by a French company that does not appear to offer similar products or services. Hopefully, NASCAR fans will note the url change and not visit the other site. Wonder if the .CO url will be prominent on t-shirts, hats, and other branded NASCAR paraphernalia. In my opinion, it’s doubtful that the .CO Registry had anything to do with the placement (confirmed).

Someone also posted an article about this on Namepros.

Comcast Announces Streampix But Doesn’t Own Matching Domain Name

Elliot Silver
-
10

Apparently Comcast has Netflix in its sight, as the company announced it will be launching a new streaming video service to compete with Netflix. Unfortunately for Comcast, it appears that they do not own the matching domain name, which I believe will be problematic, especially in the short term.

According to the Media Decoder blog on the New York Times website,

“Called Streampix, the service will give Comcast’s 22.3 million Xfinity cable subscribers access to 75,000 television shows and movies via cellphones, tablets and laptops.

The service is the result of a handful of licensing agreements Comcast has struck with media companies like Disney, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers and its own NBCUniversal.“

As you are undoubtedly aware, Netflix is a huge advertiser, spending a ton of money on banner advertising as well as direct mail and other marketing campaigns. Netflix has established itself as the leading popular video service, and the company makes it very easy for consumers to access videos online at Netflix.com as well as by mail, when you add movies to your queue on Netflix.com.

Whois records show that Streampix.com was registered back in 2003, and it’s currently owned by a Canadian company called Norpix. The company’s “flagship product,” which “has become the ultimate Digital Video Recording software” is known as Streampix. Judging by the domain name’s expiration date of 2019, it doesn’t appear that the company has plans to relinquish this name any time soon.

Undoubtedly, if consumers are intrigued by a new service provider called Streampix, they will visit Streampix.com. Luckily for Comcast, the domain name does not appear resolve at the moment. However, NorPix does appear to have a trademark  in Canada for StreamPix, granted it’s for digital recording software and not streaming videos, and it is in Canada.

**Update**

I received an email from the CEO of Norpix, Luc Nocente, who commented:

“I was shocked and surprised at the actions taken by Comcast regarding the name Streampix.  Norpix has a  trademark protection on the word Streampix in Canada and the US since around 1999.  We do a great percentage of our business in the US market and this is a blatant violation of our rights.  I intend to take legal actions against Comcast.  We feel this is going to create confusion and damage our business in the US market.“

“Lin”Sane Number of Domain Names Registered

Elliot Silver
-
18

I am somewhat torn with respect to the sudden rise to fame for the New York Knicks’ Jeremy Lin. The undrafted Harvard University graduate is the first Chinese American to play in the NBA. However, he plays for the New York Knicks, and as an avid Boston sports fan, it’s not easy to root for anything related to NY sports.

With Mr. Lin’s early success comes countless people trying to cash in on the point guard’s fame. Someone in California (apparently with no relationship to Lin) has  filed for a trademark on the term, “Linsanity.”

Several news outlets  reported  that Mr. Lin’s former basketball coach registered Linsanity.com a couple of years ago, and is selling Jeremy Lin-related shirts (if you don’t type in the www it goes to a Go Daddy landing page). Kinda strange in my opinion.

There appear to be many other domain registrations also attempting to cash in on Mr. Lin’s fame:

  • Linsanity.com
  • Linfatuation.com
  • LinderellaStory.com
  • Linspirational.com
  • Linsation.com
  • Linsational.com
  • LinKnicks.com
  • JeremyLinKnicks.com
  • HarvardHurricane.com
  • JeremyLinja.com
  • Linceptional.com
  • Linvincible.com
  • SuperLintendo.com
  • MrLincredible.com

I hope Jeremy Lin continues to perform well and defy the odds. I do hope the Knicks lose though. 🙂

Go Daddy Billboards in Times Square

Elliot Silver
-
17

Go Daddy in Times SquareI noticed a Twitter update by GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman, and I wanted to share it with you. Go Daddy has several very large billboards in Times Square, which were erected last week (click image to see full size). By the looks of it, the billboards are on 42nd Street near the intersection of 7th Avenue and Broadway, which is certainly a high traffic area.

This billboard campaign is  reminiscent  of the Times Square billboard created by the .CO Registry, although this campaign appears to have a much greater presence.

With two Super Bowl advertisements on tap, this is even more exposure for Godaddy and the domain name industry. If people know it’s easy to buy domain names, they will likely be more inclined to try and buy premium aftermarket domain names, many of which are owned by domain investors, and some of which may be listed for sale on Go Daddy’s website. This  is certainly good for those of us who invest in domain names.

Since I don’t visit Times Square very often, the accompanying photo was not taken by me and I have not seen the billboard in person.

Utah Tourism Uses Call to Action Domain Names in Campaign

Elliot Silver
-
8

I’ve seen quite a few television advertisements created by the State of Utah’s Office of Tourism, and I think they’re pretty solid when it comes to their call to action domain names. Not only does the state promote VisitUtah.com, but it also promotes SkiUtah.com  in its commercials, although the later is owned by the Utah  Ski  and  Snowboard  Association.  The Office of Tourism also operates a website in a subfolder on the state’s Utah.gov website.

There have been several times when I wanted to book a ski trip after seeing one of the commercials, especially since great skiing is just an hour from Salt Lake City, so they tell me. I think my next ski trip will likely be to Deer Valley or Park City instead of Breckenridge, Colorado.

One issue I noticed though is that the VisitUtah.com website does not appear to be ranking well in Google. When I searched Google for “visit Utah,” the site isn’t even listed in the top 100 results. Perhaps this could be related to the home page’s title tag being simply http://www.visitutah.com instead of the more SEO friendly Visit Utah, Plan Your Utah Vacation, or some other targeted SEO friendly keywords.

VisitUtah.com does appear in Google when I searched for the exact domain name, so it isn’t banned by Google. For some reason, the page title appears in Google as Utah.travel, which possibly was the former domain name or another domain name used for the same website. I believe it’s likely that the home page title tag is simply the url, instead of search engine friendly keywords, and it probably should be changed.

In my non-expert SEO opinion, the website needs to be looked at by a SEO professional to improve its search rankings. It’s great that the Utah.gov site is ranking well, but with sites promoting tourism like VisitUtah.com and SkiUtah.com, they should be dominating SERPS. When that happens, they will see an increase in traffic, and hopefully bookings.

On the other hand, it appears that the SkiUtah.com website is doing well in Google. A search of Ski Utah reveals the site as the top ranked in Google for that keyword. You’ll notice the search engine friendly page title “Ski Utah: The Greatest Snow on Earth – Home,” which is most likely helpful to its rankings.

I really think it’s quite important for the VisitUtah.com site to have some SEO attention paid to it. The Office of Tourism does not own Utah.com, so people searching Google for the Visit Utah website are more apt to land on Utah.com than their promoted website. With a call to action domain name that sounds like its telling people to visit Utah.com, it’s critical that they have everything else in order.

The Office of Tourism created a fantastic website in VisitUtah.com and Utah  Ski  and  Snowboard  Association’s SkiUtah.com is great. Kudos to them for their strong campaign, and with a little work, it can be even better.

BTW, Utah is an AWESOME place for skiing.

1...414243...67Page 42 of 67