"It's official: Internet domain-name company Verisign has launched one crazy (and at times creepy) campaign. Which of the four videos [playlist of videos above] from FCB Chicago is the most self-consciously bizarre? You've got the giant yellow smiley-fish tormenting a late-night bus rider; a cabbage in a convertible chasing a dude in an alley; a leggy frosted cake that dumps her date for a dance-floor suitor; and an oversize flirty bee in a bar with, um, pollination on hizzz mind. The wacky work, themed "Make your idea official" and using the #InternetOfficial hashtag, touts Verisign's .com and .net registration service. (What else, after all, could an anthropomorphized disco dancin' dessert treat be advertising?)..." source: Adweek
When I see the above, I wonder who at Verisign approved these ads? Really! These are supposed to motivate serious people to spend their hard-earned money (hopefully after doing the necessary "due diligence") and register .COM and .NET domain names? Sorry, but domain name registration is not a trivial process, as these ads suggest, nor are domain name registrants trivial people.
Verisign would have been a lot better off producing ads by having film crews on-site at last week's TRAFFIC Conference in Miami Beach interviewing real domain name registrants, investors and developers, who are the lifeblood of the domain name industry and are its (including ICANN's) raison d'être. These ads trivialize the domain name industry, registrants, and Verisign's brands.
-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo
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