T-Mobile’s advertising campaign includes a unique domain used just for the campaign.
The commercial embedded below has been playing frequently during the National League Championship Series on TBS (Go Cards!). You’ll see that it prominently features the domain name CatchJeremy.com. The domain name is used solely as a tie-in to the advertising campaign about T-Mobile’s international data plans.
Some proponents of new top level domain names have suggested that ad campaign tie-ins like this are a good reason to have a .brand top level domain. T-Mobile did not apply for .tmobile, but if it had, it could choose any second level domain it wanted without having to buy it from someone else. In this case the domain was free to register, so it was easy for T-Mobile. But what if it really wanted something like FindMe.com but couldn’t acquire it?
Given the option, would it be better for T-Mobile to show a domain like CatchJeremy.tmobile or FindMe.tmobile instead of CatchJeremy.com?
What if it were contest.tmobile as opposed to tmobile.com/contest or TmobileContest.com?
I’m not convinced that having these tie-in and marketing promotion domains as a second level domain under a .brand offers advantages over options currently available today.
Kassey says
Regarding use of .brand in marketing, I have not formed my opinion yet. As you suggested, company owning their .brand can easily get a domain name using their .brand for any marketing campaign, so convenience is a good point. But, you don’t seem to buy this argument. I’d like to hear your insight, Andrew.