What’s better for your brand: a good domain name, or a celebrity?
What would you say is better for your brand: hiring a “star” for two years at a cost of $50 mm or buying a domain name for the same price? this is my comment to this post
Domain names are, in my opinion, much more valubable, stable, and pose less risks as an investment, for a brand, small business, or individual that want to promote any kind of product or service. But why do I think so?
**A star endorsement won’t last in time, a domain will**
A good domain name is a more solid investment, that only has to be renewed at a negligible annual cost. Renewing a domain name may cost you 10/15 dollars of today. Renewing a contract with Tiger Woods “may” cost you a little bit more…
**A start endorsement contract needs to be re-negotiated** If the “star” is now more popular, you’ll have to pay more for their services, and probably make a new campaign according to take advantage of new events surrounding the star
**A star is tied to you only for the lenght of the contract** Nothing stops them from advertising your competitor’s product next year, unless this fact is included in the contract. And that limiting clause will necessarily make the transaction more expensive for the brand.
**A star endorsement puts your brand’s image at the mercy of the star’s actions**
Imagine that you make a deal with a certain model/actor/boxer that is at the top of his game right now. What happens if he does something really stupid, as it has happened in the past? (cocaine, wife beating…) what happens if the boxer gets publicly and badly beaten?
Your brand loses the whole campaign, that has to be taken off the air immediately. And back to square one. Look for a new star, spend millions again, do everything in a hurry…and still you won’t catch up with your competitors for a couple of years maybe. A star making you look good is a real and costly issue.
In a world of tightly calculated campaign launches, if you get out of the game this year, by the time you re-organize with a new star, months, not weeks, will have passed. Can your brand afford such slip?
A domain name will never “do” something stupid or make you look bad in public. It may lose some of its value for external reasons that could be worked around, but it won’t damage your brand’s reputation. The worst thing that can happen to a domain name is to become irrelevant and/or worthless. But even in that case, you write off the cost of the domain, not the cost of your whole marketing campaign plus the extra marketing efforts that have to be made to make a brand fashionable/respectable again when a celebrity has damaged its image.
**A star is forgotten, a good domain name is always remembered**
A good domain name will retain its value as a common expression that people search for. Would you prefer to pay 25 million dollars for having “[insert famous star here]” advertise your product today or would you rather spend 25 million buying the “sweets” or “wine” or “cheapholidays” domain names?
Generation after generation, domain names will continue to hold its value as long as we speak the same money and we want the same things. I don’t think the word “wine” is going away anytime soon in our common human psyche.
**Entering into star endorsements campaings is a dangerous never ending vicious circle for the brand**
Once you hired a star, you need to hire another one next year, and another one the year after that…in order to keep your brand fresh. You need to keep updating your stars with whoever is in fashion. Today it may be Penelope Cruz. Yesterday was Claudia Shiffer. But certainly tomorrow’s stars won’t be the ones of today.
And every year, the celebrities will charge you more for their services. Consider, for example, the value of endorsement contracts paid to David Beckham in the last few years.
In a celebrity-oriented world, the cost of hiring anyone, even small “stars” has skyrocketed in recent years. Singers, footballers, actors…no matter their trade, the market pays millions of dollars today for their mere appearance at an event. This was unthinkable 20 years ago, and keeps on going up.
…
Of course there are uncertainties regarding the future value of domain names, like there are uncertainties in every other active and cutting edge industry.
But no matter what the future holds for domains, at present, in my opinion, there is absolutely no comparison possible between hiring a star for a finite period of time or buying a domain name for a much longer period of time, for the same money.
It makes more financial sense even if we have to pay more upfront for it.
A doman mame is a much better investment, since the brand is associated forever in the mind of the consumer with something stable, that doesn’t get old, and that is not prone to make your company look bad anytime soon.
Simplicity, beauty, and money. That’s what a good domain name brings to your brand.
Can a star bring the same thing? How long for? At what cost?
What are people doing on the Internet?
The new way to market to teens
In many ways, I think Scion really trailblazed this effort when it began supporting underground hip hop artists and events. Other brands like Levis in Europe also embraced this philosophy with their Antidote campaign, which I wrote about awhile go. Jones Soda (one of the Mashup keynotes), embodies this philosophy in its support of independent music and bands. The idea is that you figure out what your core audience loves and then find a way to authentically support it. Help them publish their ‘zines, fund their events, record their music, or get their artwork out there. And if you can integrate your brand seamlessly (without forcing it), all the better. For example, Jones uses its DIY labels as a way for indie bands to get on the bottle and promote themselves.
From Ypulse
The media revolution and the future
India bypassing computers, straight into mobiles
It was only 3 years ago when 63% of all India’s music was sold on cassette. (…) by 2010… and 80% of those sales will be from purchases for handsets”.
(…) The high entry cost of computers, and of course, the massive infrastructure expenditure of even basic data cabling is slowing the mushroom effect of the internet. As a result, switched-on young Indians are investing their money in affordable multi-function mobile phones which delivers them communication plus cameras, plus gaming, plus music.
http://threebillion.com/article.php?id=7
Interesting facts and statistics about “the newcomers”
There are threebillion people under twenty five on this planet…
This is what they are doing…
The state of Britain’s youth
Forty per cent of UK youth had sex before the age of 15, compared with 15 percent of Polish teens. They drank nearly four times as much as the Italians, and, perhaps most saliently, had the lowest sense of subjective well-being
From the article Generation F*cked: How Britain is Eating Its Young
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About Javier Marti
As an independent strategy consultant, futurist, speaker and founder of Trendirama.com Consulting, Javier is dedicated to help organizations, small businesses and individuals to optimize systems, increase profits and make better choices in business and in life. He is the author of the book "Mobile, Domains & The Future"
When not consulting for clients, Javier shares his knowledge and experience through information-packed, yet entertaining presentations in a wide range of subjects in English and Spanish.
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