Elliot Silver writes:
In 2004, Citibank unveiled their “Thank You“? program, a rewards program that thanked customers for banking with Citi. I worked with some great creative people at Wunderman (Gus Tejerina, Barry Dickson, and Terry Pierce among many others) who came out with some great catchy advertising based on the “Thank You”? theme.
At the time, I hadn’t purchased my first domain name, so suggesting that Citibank should buy ThankYou.com was never something I considered. In retrospect, with such a huge branding initiative undertaken by Citi, this domain name was critical for Citibank to own. Up until 2006, the domain name was owned by a company called 800 Brands, Inc. Sometime in late 2006, the domain name was purchased by Citibank, where it now anchors the “Thank You”? rewards program.
And he concludes:
When a company unveils a new campaign or marketing slogan, they should always prepare for the best case scenario. They should ask, “if this becomes huge, will people expect to find more information at slogan.com?”? If the answer is yes or maybe, they should buy the domain name before the campaign is dropped. Not doing this can result in missed contact opportunities or added expense when the name is needed.
100% in agreement here. a multi-billion dollar company was inquiring about a certain generic domain we have before they initiated a brand change, renaming their company. They could not reach an agreement with us for the domain (we priced it relatively cheap, USD 300K range) and they could not cope with the price. After a couple of months email-negotiating, they went ahead with a different domain, “new-co-name+tech.com”. Smart move? We have hundreds of email inquiries from suppliers, manufacturers, potential partners, that prove otherwise.
Think ahead.. it’s a smart move.
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