How to Use Your .SUCKS Domain Creatively
.SUCKS can be used for just about anything, from launching a product to participating in social activism. Go ahead, think outside the domain box.
Domains 101
dotSucks at Ad:Tech ’16
“This is cool. What is it?” That’s what we heard when Vox Populi Registry, the company behind dotSucks internet domain names, made our first visit to an essential expo for advertising technology, Ad:Tech. After spending our first year talking mostly to intellectual property lawyers, Vox Populi Registry turned its attention to others who can make real and effective use of the platform: advertising. But after years of talking to (and being talked at) by people who understand top level domain names as well as we do, it was startling to get such a basic question from an industry thought to be, well, plugged in. The business model for Vox Populi Registry remains the same as the day we filed our application to manage dotSucks. Companies can use the names to better understand the mood of consumers and build loyalty, advocates can use the names to expand their reach of contributors and influence, and advertisers can use the names to get a word in edgewise. Each is easily understood, but it is clearly advertising that was first to see the active value in “sucks” not as a pejorative but a call-to-action. When Taco Bell promoted its hand-held menu under the cover of “Sharing Sucks,” when Jolly Rancher and the NFL agreed that “Being a Rookie Sucks,” and when Snap Kitchen understood the colloquial value of “Healthy Eating Sucks,” it was, as George Harrison said in “A Hard Day’s Night,” an early clue to the new direction. We just didn’t know how new. Our mission at Ad:Tech ’16 was to begin the conversation to convince the advertising industry to overcome its reluctance at speaking commercially the way many of their target audiences talk personally. It worked. By the second day we had to add a kiosk to allow attendees to register names right on the spot. And they did. But as the question above makes clear, there is still a lot of work to be done to explain, defend and promote the new gTLD program overall. There was a general understanding of the existence and value of .com, even .nyc (not strange considering Ad:Tech ’16 was held in New York City’s Javits Center, but not much when it came to any of the hundreds more. We were happy to do our part. Vox Populi Registry’s marketing focus right now on marketing is timely. Advertising is moving from television to digital mobile – digital spending will surpass TV ad sales this year for the first time and mobile is the biggest part of it. And those mobile, digital devices are in the hands of a target audience that is younger, more inclusive, less willing to accept the status quo and comfortable being familiar. An audience that understands when something sucks and aren’t afraid to say so. We think that’s a recipe for expanded dotSucks success. Based on our visit last week to Ad:Tech ’16, so do they.
The objective value of deploying on the dotSucks platform
Vox Populi Registry has gotten a lot of attention for its recent national outdoor and digital ad campaign. That’ll happen when you light up Times Square in New York City encouraging all to “Tell the World What .Sucks” But more than an obvious and sturdy platform for criticism, dotSucks can also deliver two very real business advantages to those companies willing to put the time, energy and interest into a branded site. First, if a company embraces a www.company.sucks site, it can generate real search engine optimization benefits. It can corral a fair bit of criticism that is now indiscriminately placed across the internet, often in places difficult to address, correct or refute. Think of every time a Google search is done for “fill-in-the-blank” company + “fraud” or “criticism” or whatever charge is being bandied about at the moment on the internet. The results are a hodgepodge of those distributed and difficult-to-correct places. But the development of a current and robust .sucks site ensures that it, not the range of rogue sites, will rise in search results. The flotsam and jetsam will sink. This is a real SEO advantage. For companies whose management decisions are routinely questioned (www.yahoo.sucks?) or get caught off-shore at a time of patriotic fervor (www.apple.sucks?) or become a symbol of using procedures some see as loopholes (www.pfizer.sucks?), the platform is a way to more immediately, comprehensively and definitively respond. And the links that grow on such a go-to site for others looking to vent give it another search engine advantage. Second, companies are not only subject to rumors and second-guessing. Every company, especially the best known, may stub their toe or worse, like getting caught coloring outside the lines. Think Volkswagen and emissions, think FIFA and kick-backs, think Chipotle and e.coli, think Apple and suicides among employees of its Chinese manufacturing partners. At the moment of the event, there is a natural rush to the web in general and to the companies’ sites in particular to find out more. The result may be akin to a self-inflicted distributed denial of service attack. A .sucks site mitigates that. As the web gets wider and deeper, any approach that can make a company more visible and increase consumer contact has got to be a good thing. If, at the same time, it delivers on business benefits, it becomes an even better thing.