Brand Love Hate

Rambling: Mr. Peanut 2.0, Domain Names and Flexible Brands

I have been seeing the updated Mr. Peanut on TV playing baseball and other assorted activities, then also ran across an article on iMedia Connection that talks about how the Planters icon got a facelift.

My favorite phrase in the article is "monocled legume," which got me thinking about what would have happened if Crispin Porter + Bogusky had the Planters account. I could see MonocledLegume.com as the campaign's focal point, much like Subservient Chicken and Pet Moustache for their Burger King efforts.

That sent me in another direction, thinking about brands that can support promoting those types of gimmick Web sites and domain names that are not their core sites. Clearly brands that do their business exclusively online, like Amazon, eBay or Indeed (where I work), don't want to dilute the brand or their traffic by promoting domain names other than their main sites. The companies with a physical presence and product, where the Web site supports the brand but does not represent it in total, seem to have more flexibility with their online identities. CP+B clients BK and VW are good examples.

Johnson Banks (via kottke) has a great post on brands that have applied that flexibility to their logos.

A Couple Articles to Share

Two articles I've been meaning to share:

• What Are Search Engines Saying About Your Brand? - This is a great article, and I would add that setting up e-mail alerts will allow you to monitor your brand on the search engines, and will give you the opportunity to see new mentions and pages indexed right away so you can react quickly. Related article here.
• M&As Can Lead to Talent Loss - While this is not a surprise, it's great to see some data reinforcing what employer branding specialists have said about how mergers and acquisitions can impact a company's employer brand and potentially cause turmoil among employees.

Happy reading!

Buy Domain Names Before a Merger

This past week, I watched a company announce that it is in talks with another firm to merge. It is major news for both organizations, and while reading the press releases, I saw the proposed new name of the combined corporation mentioned in print but didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. A few days later, out of curiosity, I ran some WHOIS searches on that new name, only to find that many of the domain name variations had been registered by third parties, not by either of the merging companies.

That blew me away. On the day the merger was first rumored, domain name squatters registered all significant variations of the combined firm's new name. So three days later, when the official announcement that the two companies were talking went out, their future domain name was already lost. This is not OK. Domain names are a significant part of brand protection, and should be considered and registered before any announcements are made. In this case the news leaked a few days early, but even then, there was an opportunity for the companies to register the domains before squatters did.

When working with clients on any type of naming project, I always looked at what domain name variations were available, even if it was an internal communication effort. Whether a product name or an internal newsletter, protecting the associated domain names is a critical step in making sure the company controls that developing brand. Allowing domain names to be snagged like this opens the door for improper communications before the merged organization even gets off the ground. Having the domain names in hand as the PR begins provides the confidence and brand protection needed for a successful merger and re-launch. Granted, the companies will likely secure the domain names via legal means later, but imagine those domains pointing to a news portal or blog about how the merger process is going, rather than to a domain landing page that is degrading a brand that's only a few days old? Seems like a much better first step forward.

Liquid, Smoke, New Identities - BEA and Vurv

I was reading the latest issue of InfoWorld magazine and came across an ad for enterprise software provider BEA and its new "liquid thinking" identity (by agency Eleven). It immediately made me think of recruitment software provider Vurv Technology (formerly Recruitmax), which recently launched its new identity with a similar "smoke" design. Both look cool, but pretty close. Liquid and smoke are in.

Google Brand Protection

Via digg, I've been enjoying this list of Google domain names posted on the Search Engine Watch blog.  There are plenty of interesting ones (Google Calendar is a hot topic today), but my favorite is 466453.com, or "Google" spelled out on a telephone keypad.