I was watching the NBA Finals this evening, and I saw a commercial for the Bud Light Cruise. The call to action url wasn’t on the company’s branded BudLight.com website. Instead, they sent people to a special Facebook url: Facebook.com/BudLight.
In my opinion, they should have sent people to a call to action domain name like BudLightCruise.com. Unfortunately for Budweiser, that sensible domain name was created in 2009, and it is owned by someone using Moniker’s privacy service. The domain name is currently parked, and it’s also for sale at Sedo. Since this is the 4th edition of the cruise, they likely started it a few years back and should have bought the domain name at that time. It was first registered in April of 2008.
Perhaps a downside to Facebook page marketing is that they may not rank all that well in search engines. People that search Google will easily find Bud Light’s cruise page, but it’s not the Facebook page the company set up. The top result is BudLightPortParadise.com, which the company does own and operate.
The domain name isn’t everything as this demonstrates, but it would make sense for Bud Light to try and get the name in case people type BudLightCruise.com into their browser. As the PPC industry indicates, people do click on those links and that costs the company money.
I see more and more big companies driving people to their Facebook.com/’company or product’ – They want the ‘likes’ and daily interaction that faceook brings.
http://adage.com/article/news/bluefin-labs-mapping-social-media-chatter-tv-ads/228122/
Big companies don´t get nothing for free. Watch for Facebook to get them dependent, just to hammer them with fees.
Good article – facebool is such a well known brand however it also puts the cool/hip factor into advertising and relieves a company of the expense of creating sites for every event.
What I do disagree with is that bud light should not just try and get the domain but file a udrp and suit against the owner. This is purely a tm violation and whoever registered it had every intent to capitalize on the bud light trademark. I think stories like this should not promote or infer that a company should buy the name but also provide and example of why these are the types of names you should not register.
I’m not a lawyer but anyone can tell you unless this guys name is bud light and he owns a boat or operates a cruise then all he wants to do is capitalize of the tm. Nothing original or smart about domain investing here but a pure example of another idiot who helps give real investors a bad name.
@ Alan
I agree with you, and in looking back at the article it does seem to imply that I think Budweiser should buy the domain name. I didn’t mean that and should have been more clear. Incidentally, prior to it being privatized, the owner of the domain name was located outside the US, so a lawsuit would likely be fruitless
http://www.domaintools.com/research/whois-history/?page=details&domain=budlightcruise.com&date=2010-08-08
I see another potential downfall to using Facebook URLs, is that other companies can buy ads on your pages.
This is another good reason that domains will always hold value.