Here’s how domain name companies marketed their wares at SXSW this year.
Yesterday afternoon I went downtown to see what all of the domain name companies were up to at SXSW in Austin.
I started by searching for the .Space grilled cheese sandwich stall. Unfortunately, they had just run out of sandwich materials before I got there. But the company gave away 1,100 .Space-branded sandwiches through yesterday afternoon.
Here’s a picture of the GrilledCheese.space stall. Radix founder Bhavin Turakhia and Channel Manager Kevin Kopas are the two on the right:
Next, I walked about a block to the Sedo Frozen Yogurt truck. They were giving away free frozen yogurt with toppings named after top level domains. As of Sunday evening they had served 2,000 cups of froyo. They also had coffee from coffee.club. Here’s a video:
SXSW also has a tradeshow, and I went to visit the domain name companies there. Here’s Radix’s booth featuring some of their TLDs:
Uniregistry set up shop a few aisles away:
The Domain.com and .Me party kicked off around 4. A lot of people stopped by to listen to the two bands and drink a Domain Fire cocktail.
A handful of other domain name companies were in Austin. .Co sponsored a number of events including a happy hour for companies using .Co. .XYZ had its purple people on the ground, although I didn’t run into them. Endurance also hosted a couple events (in addition to the Domain.com party).
Michele Neylon says
And I was there flying the .irish colours for Blacknight 🙂
Dennis Combs says
Thanks for the update Andrew. Wish I was there! Do the vendors get much love from the attendees? Do you think the investment to have a booth is worth the money?
Andrew Allemann says
You’d have to ask some of the vendors. The floor wasn’t packed when I was there, but I’ve seen it busier in previous years so it might just have been because it was Monday afternoon and the weather was nice outside. Sometimes non-traditional marketing works better at SXSW.
Dietmar Stefitz (@bemarnet) says
Even if you can’t measure it instantly, it is always worth the money to give back to the community! You won’t forget the .club topping or the .space cheeese sandwich! For sure a better Investment than expensive TV Ads !