Is forwarding your brand’s .com domain to Facebook a good idea?
A reader just notified me that Doritos.com is no longer a standalone web site. Frito-Lay has simply forwarded it to its Facebook page.
This appears to have happened a few months ago, so it’s not “news”. But it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
I’m not a fan of companies turning over their web presences to Facebook. Or even advertising their Facebook page in a commercial instead of their own domain name. Doing so puts you at the whim of Facebook and its frequent changes to terms of service.
But in this case Frito-Lay is retaining the domain it tells people to go to — Doritos.com — instead of promoting a Facebook URL.
That’s a little different. By branding Doritos.com as the destination, it can always change course later.
Yet it still makes me a little queasy, like the time I puked up a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
What do you think? Is this a good use for a brand’s .com domain name?
Mike says
The problem is that most/many ,not all by any means,end users are brainless when it comes to online strategy and Facebook looks nice easy ,well known option for them and they do not realise the pitfalls and downside. I have had a number of end users fail to buy the .com that I own and instead just use Facebook . Not good and hope Facebook does something more to put them off.
Andrew Allemann says
Mike – there are a bunch of tools for this, such as LivePerson.
Lance says
Great idea if you have no web page at first and most of all to build up your fan page , likes or other. After that I dont see why.
The value in a site is lost thereafter unless you plan on not really selling your product or service on that site in which case…this fits that mold.
Russ says
In the general case, no, it’s not a good idea.
However Doritos is doing it right.
They’re trying to get people to engage with the brand. They know their audience is already on Facebook and are currently running a campaign to vote for the Doritos superbowl commercial.
Using the domain to feed direct nav visitors into that campaign makes sense.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Russ – the SuperBowl commercial is key here.
Jason says
As I told Andrew via email earlier it could possibly affect the domain name business if more brands/companies were to adapt to this.
I just think by giving your traffic to FB or any other company for that matter is quite absurd to say the least. I highly doubt FB is paying for that traffic from Pepsico.
I spot-checked other Pepsico brand (7up, Frito Lay (main(, RiceARoni, Gatorade, etc and it appears Doritos.com is the only brand they are experimenting with.
The only downside to this would be for individuals working in IT as contractual or sub-contractual design firms for these national brands. Some brands use in-house designers while many rely on professional design companies.
If more brands move to forwarding their domains to their brands FB page, IT budgets would undeniably be much less than running standalone sites for each brand or product.
Thoughts anyone?
Mike says
Thanks Andrew will try that.
David J Castello says
It’s a stupid move, but these people have so much money they don’t care what anyone else thinks. During the SuperBowl a couple of years back, they promoted a different URL than Doritos.com during their commericial so they could, you know, “track” it better.
ChuckWagen says
steaming.pile
Domo Sapiens says
Great Move.
Great “easy to maintain’ interactive destination = FB.
better yet … Great .Com-duit!
Take this ultra-memorable .com domain out of the picture/mix and what do you have?
location location location !
where are the bad news?
(I think some of you over-reacted)
Robert.
James says
Great move, here is why: it is a great way of keeping their name out in the public, and interacting with the consumer, it is not like if they have a standalone website the consumer will be making orders of their product online.