Overstock.com rebranding as o.co

[Windoms]

o.co still pointing to overstock.com

''The business started rebranding in early 2011, as "O.co", to simplify and unify its international operations but interrupted this effort a few months later, citing consumer confusion over the new name.''

Amazon
Alibaba
eBay
Expedia
TripAdvisor
Overstock
O.co

I wonder who took that decision.

 

[Windoms]

(4th poll answer not as funny as I imagined once it went live)

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Was it the .CO registry. They probably paid them a tonne of cash to re-brand to help them with the launch of the extension?

 

[Windoms]

''Confused? So were customers. Mr. Johnson said customers responded well to the O.co advertising, but after watching the spots, "a good portion" of those who sought out the website went to O.com, instead of O.co. (O.com is one of the off-the-market single letter domain names still held by ICANN.)''

Mr Johnson was the company's president then.

 

[Hootsifer]

Trying to ride the wave of "trendy" TLD changes. It backfired, live and learn. .com is king but others have their appropriate place.

 

[Windoms]

This article from here

The .co domain is hot… at least from a marketing perspective.

GoDaddy and others have run large television campaigns (including during the Super Bowl) to promote the new domain. I have no data to suggest that the .co domains are gaining traction (although I suspect that is not the case).

The first major .co move? Overstock.com which is rebranding themselves as O.co. It will be interesting to watch whether they gain branding / marketing traction with the move (again, I suspect that will not be the case).

It is an interesting / bizarre move considering that Overstock is already a prominent brand and advertising efforts around a rebrand are challenging… no matter how short or clever the new domain is.

This ad, which is currently running in prim time television, is proof: the spot is focused on explaining the rebrand while reinforcing the core brand qualities…. tough, confusing and probably not worthwhile.

 

[Windoms]

Interesting that GoDaddy was doing .co advertising during the Super Bowl LOL. And these guys from a big time company chose to do it...

"This is an excellent example of navel-gazing," said Steven Donaldson, principal of Radiant Brands. "There seems to be such an internal focus on decisions and making them from the inside out, they're not asking what if. ... They're out of touch with consumers."

 

[Windoms]

The Super Bowl ad

@MadAboutDomains It costs a lot to advertise during the Super Bowl so idk, maybe things happened backstage

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I notice that Joan Rivers no longer uses Joan.co...

 

[amit chowdhury]

''Confused? So were customers. Mr. Johnson said customers responded well to the O.co advertising, but after watching the spots, "a good portion" of those who sought out the website went to O.com, instead of O.co. (O.com is one of the off-the-market single letter domain names still held by ICANN.)''

Mr Johnson was the company's president then.

Agreed but if you go to o.com in chrome, as it is not resolving any website/server, chrome suggest o.co, interesting?

 

[Windoms]

Thats normal lol chrome suggests alternatives when you reach a dead page.

T dot co is twitter btw. F.co i thought it would be facebook but no, its for sale.
Quite interesting that o.com is owned by ICANN. Is that the case for all one letter .com domains?