Not a robot
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Here is an actual scenario: an Australia company is holding the contest for naming a beverage to be sold in USA. The reward is $200 and .com domain is required. At the current rate, about 1,000 names will be submitted by the end of contest.
The big problem: the client is taking huge financial risk in possible legal fees. Beverage naming is serious business. When you brand a drink, you are competing with Coca Cola and others who own truck loads of trademark. You don’t need to dive very deep to find that effective beverage brands are rarely made up words. This is particular true for the specific drink the client wants to sell.
For mere $200, you aren’t going to get quality research into trademarks with any single agency. For crowdsourcing? Absolutely zero research. By essentially paying 10 cents for each name that with available .com, the client is asking for 1) a truckload of made-up names that require big marketing money to sell and 2) some usable ones with high risk of trademark infringement.
The second problem is SH is not honest about what they are. The system only allows a creative to submit either a domain that’s in SH market place or a domain that’s freely available. For the latter, the creative can submit the domain and allow SH to register the domain in return for commission on domain sale. For SH, domain acquisition is very cheap. Either someone has gone through the trouble of acquiring good domains (and bear the burden of holding cost), or SH just pays for $12 for each domain. However, SH charges very high commission, which inflate the price of domains on its marketplace. Basically the whole business model is to sell domains at high margin and low cost. The rest is smokescreen. (Think about it, how much SH can earn by holding 3 figure contests?)
You may argue that the client is responsible for picking the right name/domain and bear the legal cost. Here is the thing, anyone who ask for a beverage name AND a .com is probably clueless about the legal aspect. This brings us to SH’s biggest problem: the platform is about selling and not about relationship building. If SH is mildly responsible, it should outright reject the contest and compensate everyone involved.
The company actually provides very little “service”. It’s premium listing are really paid-for listing, not curated listing that it claims. It doesn’t even do brokerage to help clients find the best domains (which are probably outside of its marketplace).
Much of what I just said is not available on SH site. The company is very opaque about what it’s doing, I had to pay $10 admission fee to its naming platform to learn about it.
If you are a local business who doesn’t need a domain, SH is great. If you are serious business, really do your homework. Good brand requires careful research. Don’t skip the step and expect things for the cheap, because SH ain’t gonna cover your big legal bill.
The big problem: the client is taking huge financial risk in possible legal fees. Beverage naming is serious business. When you brand a drink, you are competing with Coca Cola and others who own truck loads of trademark. You don’t need to dive very deep to find that effective beverage brands are rarely made up words. This is particular true for the specific drink the client wants to sell.
For mere $200, you aren’t going to get quality research into trademarks with any single agency. For crowdsourcing? Absolutely zero research. By essentially paying 10 cents for each name that with available .com, the client is asking for 1) a truckload of made-up names that require big marketing money to sell and 2) some usable ones with high risk of trademark infringement.
The second problem is SH is not honest about what they are. The system only allows a creative to submit either a domain that’s in SH market place or a domain that’s freely available. For the latter, the creative can submit the domain and allow SH to register the domain in return for commission on domain sale. For SH, domain acquisition is very cheap. Either someone has gone through the trouble of acquiring good domains (and bear the burden of holding cost), or SH just pays for $12 for each domain. However, SH charges very high commission, which inflate the price of domains on its marketplace. Basically the whole business model is to sell domains at high margin and low cost. The rest is smokescreen. (Think about it, how much SH can earn by holding 3 figure contests?)
You may argue that the client is responsible for picking the right name/domain and bear the legal cost. Here is the thing, anyone who ask for a beverage name AND a .com is probably clueless about the legal aspect. This brings us to SH’s biggest problem: the platform is about selling and not about relationship building. If SH is mildly responsible, it should outright reject the contest and compensate everyone involved.
The company actually provides very little “service”. It’s premium listing are really paid-for listing, not curated listing that it claims. It doesn’t even do brokerage to help clients find the best domains (which are probably outside of its marketplace).
Much of what I just said is not available on SH site. The company is very opaque about what it’s doing, I had to pay $10 admission fee to its naming platform to learn about it.
If you are a local business who doesn’t need a domain, SH is great. If you are serious business, really do your homework. Good brand requires careful research. Don’t skip the step and expect things for the cheap, because SH ain’t gonna cover your big legal bill.
