Via Metal Center News:
For 35 years, Titanium Industries has been the first name in titanium. The Rockaway, N.J.-based company claims to be the world’s largest distributor of titanium. Its website, www.titanium.com, is the default choice for information on the specialty metal. Its strong corporate identity is an asset when selling titanium - but it proved to be a liability in selling other products.
Over the years, Titanium Industries expanded its reach, adding nickel and other metals to satisfy the requests of existing customers. While those customers took advantage of the company’s growing inventory of non-titanium alloys, Titanium Industries found it more difficult to gain traction with new customers.
“Part of the problem we had was going into someone’s office and leaving a business card, which says Titanium Industries with a website Titanium.com,”? says Jeff Wise, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. “That guy comes up with a nickel order two months later and Titanium Industries is not the first name that comes to his mind.”?
Titanium Industries is addressing the problem by creating a new division, High Performance Metal, to market its non-titanium lines. The company will stock nickel 718 and nickel 625, while exploring the feasibility of cobalt-chrome-moly, 316L stainless and other alloys.
“We decided to rebrand ourselves,”? Wise says, noting that the company has registered the High Performance Metal web domain name in countries where Titanium Industries has existing operations
Can’t argue with that. They grew bigger then their industry and it’s time for expansion. Would it have been better if they used a nongeneric from the start? I think using the generic term helped them control the industry at first, as they said, “That guy comes up with a nickel order two months later and Titanium Industries is not the first name that comes to his mind.“, which means, if the guy came up with a titanium order and saw that same company name (Titanium Industries), they would have been first on his mind. On the other hand, take B&N for example, they own Books.com. Bank of America owns Loans.com, and Roche Laboratories owns Weightloss.com. Maybe, just maybe, the future of branding is in controlling both generic terms and specific brands? Food for thought.
Hi Sahar,
I appreciate this post and your comments on Titanium Industries blessing and challenge with their brand and domain titanium.com. As you commented, they needed to expand and their domain pigeon-holed them.
The timing of this post is good as I’m contemplating the best strategy to develop a few key domains I own. I picked up Magician.com, Magicians.com, and Illusionist.com in ‘97. Without divulging all my “magical secrets”, my passion is to develop them into the definitive source for magic enthusiasts. There will be a number of different services offered and choosing the right domain to build my brand upon is crucial.
My first reaction was keep Magician.com or Magicians.com as the primary brand… but then I started thinking about using the generics to drive traffic to a specific brand (whatever magical brandname that may be). This would allow me to take advantage of the traffic and build up the business. As time passed and the brandname made its way into the mainstream and became self-sufficient, it may be an option to use the generics to drive traffic to another related site (and on and on). This way, you’re building up Internet property and businesses that are independent of a generic domain.
Anyhow, I’m interested in hearing yours (and others) professional thoughts on this.
Thank you kindly,
ROMM
—-ANSWER—-
It’s a personal choice. I think it can work either way. Generic or specific. From our experience with FuneralHomes.com, when you build, type ins, while an added bonus and great tool to out-do your competitors (think extra bidding power on keywords because of extra natural traffic conversions), is not where the volume of your traffic will come from, especially not if you plan to dominate an industry.
I do like your domains allot. You are welcome to contact us about development advice or just to say Hi. Ask for Darren Cleveland, RMG CEO/president.
Cheers
Sahar
Sahar,
I see that my last comment wasn’t allowed (or so it seems)… Please let me know what the posting rules are… I can certainly make my post generic without the specific mention of my domain names.
I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on how I may want to approach branding my magic business… I own these great generics, but would truly appreciate your opinion on how to best utilize them.
Thank you kindly,
—-ANSWER—-
Nothing wrong with your first comment my friend. Will take me a little time to answer as I have to step out.
Sahar
“Maybe, just maybe, the future of branding is in controlling both generic terms and specific brands? Food for thought.”
___
Now, that is some ‘real food for thought’…
I for one think it is more than just a ‘maybe’…but I have a feeling deep down you ‘know’ this is much more than just a ‘maybe’…and have most likely known it for sometime…lol
Heres to the ‘maybe’ coming true… over a spectrum of industry’s…much sooner than later.
Best,
Dan
—-ANSWER—-
P&G started this many years ago when they got some of the best generics to support their brand. Now they are promoting dentalcare.com, scent.com, pampers.com. Johnson & Johnson are also in the game, promoting baby.com and own cancer.com and few other generics.
There are many others of course.
Sahar
Sahar..,
baby.com was going to be my example. but, like you said…many others out there.
Most recently…
Hyundai (car company) thinkaboutit.com
(3rd down)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=think about it&btnG=Search
Put a lot of $ into this advertising campaign… not a bad one at all.
Peace!
Dan