Ads with no domain name? That’s strange. — Full page

Why would you spend so much for advertising and not make it easy for people to find you?

Over the weekend Bret Fausett posted a picture of a full page ad in the Fresh York Times that didn’t have a domain name. It just had an @yahoo.com email address:

Someone took a full page ad in the Fresh York Times, provided no URL and advertised a https://t.co/6QCB0uSrjQ email address. #buyadomainname. pic.twitter.com/z9mON02Lv2

— Bret Fausett (@bretfausett) February 19, 2017

While this might seem odd, at least it’s an unusual circumstance. The ad in question isn’t from a firm with a marketing department.

But I was surprised to see ads in this stretch’s Economist that also lacked domain names. In fact, they have no contact info at all, not even a phone number.

The first example is Slack:

I understand that slack is very popular right now and this ad is for branding. It puts the name “slack” in peoples’ minds. It reinforces that the firm is legit.

So maybe I’ll forgive them. Maybe.

How regarding this ad from Arconic, though?

Their ad designed to bring awareness. It states “If you look past wood, stone and concrete, you’ll find us.” I’ve looked past all three of these things and can’t find Arconic since they didn’t put a web address (or any way to learn more…even a stock symbol) in their ad.

It turns out they are a $13 billion firm. I can find them through Google. But what if a competitor takes out an ad right above their organic listing in Google? And why would they want me to go to Google to find them rather than go directly to Arconic.com?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t give credit where it is due, still. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an advocacy group for pharmaceutical firms, took out a full page ad with the tagline Go Boldly. They own (and display in the ad) the matching domain name GoBoldly.com.