Archive for the 'Marketing' Category

Pizza Hut to rebrand as The Hut?

Published June 21, 2009 in Domain Names and Marketing. 2 Comments

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Pizza Hut could slowly be rebranding as The Hut, according to several reports in marketing and media publications. The company has been adding pasta dishes to its menu lately, which also caused it to rebrand as Pasta Hut in the UK in 2008 (a decision I haven’t been fond of, either), so I can understand why Pizza Hut feels the need to change its name, in addition to appealing to a younger audience often referring to Pizza Hut simply as “The Hut”. However, Pizza Hut has been an established brand name for so many years, making me think dropping that name could alienate some customers. In addition to that, I also doubt that this is the right time for a rebranding.

Moreover, the company has again forgotten about buying its different company names as domain names prior to the announcement. As of this writing, TheHut.com is owned by an ecommerce company in the UK, and Hut.com is under whois privacy and forwarding to a parked page. The hyphenated version The-Hut.com is parked as well and marked as for sale. Pizza Hut/The Hut better be ready to fork out a lot of money if it wants to acquire these domain names now that everybody knows about the rebranding. Heck, it hasn’t even acquired any other variations, yet. Both Hut.net and TheHut.net are owned by iREIT (registered in 2000 and 2001 respectively). Hut.co.uk forwards to a custom parked page and TheHut.co.uk is owned by the aforementioned TheHut.com group. And don’t get me started on Pizza.com, which Pizza Hut should have bought in 2008, but which was later sold to National A-1.

I’m scratching my head over how a company with such a well-known brand could want to drop it basically overnight. The rebranding is even more risky given today’s unstable economic environment, where a valuable brand name, which is recognized by customers all around the world, is something you can fall back on. Anyway, Pizza Hut has already tested new, red pizza delivery boxes with the name “The Hut” on them, according to a BrandWeek interview with Pizza Hut CMO Brian Niccol. But it’s also important to say that no Pizza Hut spokesperson has officially confirmed the rebranding, yet, so maybe they will decide against it in the end given the mixed media coverage.

(Hat tip to Owen Frager.)

Lexus blocking GoDaddy commercial

Published June 21, 2009 in Domain Names and Marketing. 1 Comment

GoDaddyIn a rather surprising move, Japanese automaker Lexus is blocking a GoDaddy commercial that was set to air twice during the upcoming US Open. In the TV commercial named “Speeding“, GoDaddy model Danica Patrick is driving a custom Ford Mustang, an American car.

Lexus is NBC’s main television sponsor of the sports event and it has enforced that no other automakers shall be allowed to advertise on the channel during the US Open broadcast.

You can look at Lexus’ decision from two points of view. On one side, it was an unlucky decision, because blocking a US company from advertising during a major tournament held in the United States won’t bring positive publicity for the Japanese company. On the other hand, Lexus and Ford clearly are competitors, so blocking the marketing efforts of a company that is in trouble already could increase Lexus’ chances of gaining on Ford in the United States. The only thing is, it is not Ford but GoDaddy, an Internet company, that wants to air its television commercial. So Lexus is blocking a technology company it’s not competing with, only because there is another car in that commercial?

GoDaddy isn’t selling cars. It is selling domains, as everybody clearly knows, and the TV commercial is in no way misleading in this regard. The conflict with Lexus isn’t necessarily bad for GoDaddy, though. The domain registrar company has already started to capitalize on this by issuing a press release about it to basically further push its brand and identity as an “American company”.

Oh yeah, is it possible that this is just a publicity stunt by GoDaddy? In any case, GD is going to benefit from this the one way or the other.

JetBlue’s YouTube Marketing Strategy

Published June 18, 2009 in Marketing. 0 Comments

JetBlue had its first flight from New York to Los Angeles yesterday, and the airline has packed its BetaBlue plane full of well-known YouTube personalities and bloggers to market its new air route. BetaBlue is the company’s only plane with wireless Internet access.

I think it’s a creative marketing strategy to give famous bloggers and YouTube video producers a free flight in exchange for buzz on the Internet that is likely to quickly reach hundreds of thousands of potential new customers. Nowadays, no medium gets the word out as fast as the Internet. It also shows that businesses rely more heavily on the web when it comes to marketing. It’s no secret that the advertising dollars are migrating from the old-fashioned media to the world wide web, and this trend will only continue in the future.

The Internet is the perfect marketing tool, not only because it has paved the way for targeted advertising methods such as Google AdWords, which have made it easier to make educated advertising decisions and drive efficiency, but also because it encourages word of mouth and viral marketing like no other medium.

(via AdAge)

Marchex Adhere adds premium websites to its advertising network

Published April 8, 2009 in Internet and Marketing. 0 Comments

Marchex, Inc.Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHX), a leading local search and performance advertising company, today announced that it has added 16 premium local and vertical Web sites, including Internet.com (a division of WebMediaBrands), The Big Money, BondsOnline, and Incisive Media’s Law.com to Marchex Adhere™, its vertical performance advertising network.

“At Internet.com, we appeal to a blend of IT and business professionals looking for global news and analysis on products and services that impact their everyday lives. When they visit our Web site, we want to ensure we are delivering advertising that is highly relevant to their interests and needs,” said Gus Venditto, Senior VP and General Manager, WebMediaBrands. “Marchex Adhere delivers top quality industry-specific advertisers that are well matched to our content, allowing us to maximize our ad inventory and revenue.”

Marchex Adhere features more than 200 premium publisher Web sites and newsletters, including BusinessWeek, Kiplinger.com, and RealtyTrac, across numerous verticals, including business, finance, real estate, information technology, and human resources. Unlike traditional ad networks, Marchex Adhere gives publishers control over their own inventory and provides advertisers transparency on where their ads appear on the network.

“Publishers are increasingly looking for the most effective and efficient ways to maximize their yield, while advertisers want to place their ads where they are most relevant and generate the highest return-on-investment,” said Sloan Seymour, Senior Vice President, Marchex Adhere. “Marchex Adhere is helping both parties maximize their results, providing transparency and control along the way.”

“Marchex Adhere offers a breadth of premium Web sites, across a wide range of industries, giving us the ability to reach a highly qualified audience,” said Jeff Coveney, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Application Security. “Using several site- and category-specific campaigns, we were able to cost-effectively target those businesses that utilize our solutions, resulting in higher conversion rates and more qualified sales.”

(Press release via Marchex)

Microsoft to Merge Windows Live and Office Live

Published January 24, 2009 in Internet and Marketing. 1 Comment

http://www.pcworld.com/article/158254/microsoft_to_merge_windows_live_and_office_live.html

It’s been reported that Microsoft (MSFT) is going to rebrand both of its Windows Live and Office Live services under the name of Kumo. Apparently, “kumo” is Japanese for “cloud” or “sea spider”, inter alia. The company filed a trademark application for Kumo on December 04, 2008. It has also bought a couple of domains that will be pointing to the new site. First and foremost, they bought the four-letter domain Kumo.com, which was originally registered in 1996. Microsoft also bought and registered KumoSearch.com, KumoWiki.com, KumoPics.com, KumoGroups.com and KumoTravel.com.

Microsoft’s online software business has been struggling for a while and is facing increasing competition from Google’s line of online office software. The Windows Live and Office Live brand has never been a success, so rebranding may be a good decision, especially since MSFT is now going to merge most of its online services and its Live.com search engine under one name. However, whether Kumo is a good name remains to be seen. I’ve actually liked Live.com very much, and I still think it’s better than Kumo. Both are short names, but “live” is an actual word that I think has a lot of branding potential. I don’t think that completely moving away from that brand will do any good. Why does Microsoft not concentrate on merging its online products and keep the Live.com brand instead of dumping it for a typical Web 2.0 start-up name?

Anyway, there seems to be increasing demand for short four-letter brands, which will be music in the ears of the owners of four-letter domain names. Hulu, Wiki, Kumo, Fusu and others… Short seems to be good.

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