Verizon’s work of late has been interesting, what with their “MapForThat” and “iDont” executions (which we believe to be from McCann and McGarry Bowen respectively). It all seems to be part of a bigger scheme to take AT&T down a peg or two. No, it is part of a bigger plan to beat out the communications provider. And it would all have worked perfectly, had they not forgotten to buy some domains related to the work.
We haven’t done any studies lately about the habits of people who are likely to see the iDont and MapForThat ads, but there’s a good chance they will forget the URLs provided in the respective commercials and enlist Google’s help. You do it all the time.
So the validity of this post, then, depends wholly on how important you feel URLs are to campaigns and (probably most importantly) SEO. For example, if you think it’s bad that Verizon Wireless doesn’t own MapForThat.com and iDont.com, then you’ll think this is a great article. If you disagree with that notion, feel free to click here.
Someone claiming to be the owner of MapForThat.com tells us that three brands (none of which is McCann or Verizon Wireless, no word on McGarry Bowen), are bidding for the site. So far the bidding is up to $75,000, unless we’re being lied to — which is possible. Nonetheless, that seems awfully high. But could Verizon Wireless be losing $75,000 in business, SEO and stuff?
Most likely scenario: the price was too high. Listen, this brand identity stuff is important, especially with tech and phones and all that. I once worked for a company that paid a band $20k because they had the same name as the company. And by comparison, both band and company were tiny.
Apparently, someone bought the domain over the summer and ever since there’s been this bidding war going on. Still working to figure out who is in on the bid, but one thing is certain — it’s not Verizon Wireless. And that means one thing: someone wants to screw that company over, and thinks they can do it with one measly domain. Could Verizon’s campaign be that strong? Why do they not seem to think so while some competitor(s) allegedly do?
Same answer applies to iDont, though we haven’t heard about any insidery-trading type stuff regarding bidding wars for the name. Yet.
More: “We Hear: McGarry Bowen Wins Verizon Wireless Project (We Think it’s Android)”