.London will start popping up in The Underground, on billboards and TV.
The .London top level domain name is about to get a lot more exposure in London.
The registry is beginning a major online and offline marketing campaign based on fictional companies from various London neighborhoods.
Ads will appear in the London Underground, prominent roadside billboards and TV. There will also be a digital and social media advertising component as well as business community outreach. Out-of-home ads will start in October and November and TV ads will air in January and February.
Here are examples of a couple of the ads:
I find the choice of domain names perplexing because the ads include apostrophes, which aren’t valid characters in domain names. Consumers will have to not only remember the lengthy domains, but also realize they should drop the apostrophe when typing the domain.
Still, this is exactly the type of campaign necessary to boost awareness of geo domain names.
There are currently 75,000 .london domain names in the zone file.
Pete says
Andrew,
Apostrophes are not needed, the ads are merely inviting businesses in to register a domain name within the field advertised,
for example: “andrewsbarbers.london” or “billthegardener.london”, the slogan on the advertising pitch is optional and an example only.
Andrew Allemann says
I understand that. As is common practice, the domain names used in the ads (minus the apostrophes) have been activated for the campaign. Given that part of the goal is to introduce people to the fact that .london domains exist, I think there is a big benefit to having people actually type these domains in to see for themselves.
Michael H says
From the ads, I surmised they were talking about shave.london and gardener.london because domain names can’t have spaces either.
Pete says
Point taken, Cheers.