Taking Down the Ogilvy Giant
by Adrian Hanft, (9 comments)
A reputable company should never let their domain registration expire. It is an avoidable mistake that results in embarrassment not to mention huge expense when you try to get it back. I couldn’t believe it when I read on Adrag that Ogilvy London’s website is now registered to viral ad agency ASABAILEY. To make the slap in the face sting just a little more, Ogilvyís homepage now has the tagline ìIf you understood the modern brand, youíd understand how to protect itî with a link to ASABAILEYís site. Ouch.
I tend to agree with the premise that the institution of advertising is failing. I don’t think viral marketing is the whole answer, but it is certainly getting tons of ink lately. Keep this story in mind when you read my upcoming review of The Cluetrain Manifesto.
Comments (9)
Donovan Beery said:
Did it actually expire (the wording is vague)? Ogilvy’s London URL is http://www.ogilvy.co.uk/ - the domain being purchased is actually a different variation of their name. A lot comes down to how many domain names you should purchase for your company.
It does make a huge statement though. Makes me want to go buy beadesigngroup.org and put a giant statement on the page saying the group let their URL get hijacked, and how can this organization be trusted with anything because of it :)
Posted on November 10, 2004
Adrian said:
I guess I am unsure if the domain expired or if they didn’t have it registered in the first place. Thanks for clarifying my misleading post…
Posted on November 10, 2004
sk said:
They did have it registered, one of the last comments on adrag has a link to the yahoo cache of the former ogilvy site, as it looked before the hijack.
Posted on November 10, 2004
Bennett said:
What if I want to write a review of Cluetrain? OK, go ahead. Save me some work. I will definately have some things to say about it as well. It should make for an interesting discussion.
Posted on November 10, 2004
Donovan Beery said:
Another thought if this did become expired… a lot of companies in the late 90s registered every variation of their name they could think of, even though they didn’t need them. Eventually many quit renewing them on purpose. A company I worked with had dozens (understatement) of names, and when it came to renewing them, they ended up keeping around 5.
I would be interested to know if this was still a URL Ogilvy was promoting, or if they just gave up on it, not seeing any real drawback to it. I myself have 3 variations of my company name, but only advertise 1, and eventually I may give up on the other 2, so start planning your Eleven19 was hijacked sites now.
Posted on November 10, 2004
lpc24 said:
Just to put this one right.
Some posts have questioned the attack by the viral team as being misguided as O&M use Ogilvy as its worldwide brand, OK fine, but can any one explain this then…
http://www.ogilvymather.nl
Seems to me that those who are saying otherwise such as the misinformed netimperative.com should do a bit more research before jumping in with their comments. The legend lives on.
LPC24
Posted on November 11, 2004
z said:
This is all very tedious. The simple fact is that while LPC24 (who lives in the heady advertising metropolis that is Earl Shilton, Leicestershire BTW, and is - as anyone with a web browser can find out - also employed by Asabailey) has made a cute point by registering a domain Ogilvy DOESN’T EVEN USE, if you actually read the Netimperative article, all it does it point out that Asa Bailey hasn’t registered obvious domains for even the companies it lists AS IT’S OWN CLIENTS. Some legend.
Posted on November 12, 2004
Adrian said:
Z, You didn’t leave your email address or a valid link to let us know who you are. Perhaps you are Ogilvy’s ghost doing damage control… A
Posted on November 16, 2004
Adrian said:
If anyone is interested, here is a link to the update on adrag.
Posted on December 5, 2004