Custom URL's and how they work

Dos Equis, the Mexican beer brand, has recently launched an interesting user-generated video based social media campaign called “The Most INteresting Toast in the World”. Quirky, cool, and typically very Mexican beer-ish, the campaign is just about to really gain traction. What’s intersting is the fact that Dos Equis is driving the campaign via a ‘custom’ URL – one that actually uses their tag line: www.staythirstymyfriends.com

Now, that’s not the first time brands choose to use custom URLs for campaigns than use main-brand URL’s with /subdomains. Another beer giant Carib went earlier with passdcarib.com – nice again, call to action built into the domain. Like that.


There are some financial institutions who turn their slogans into URLs — like Mastercard who uses Priceless.com as its consumer-facing website — but the overwhelming majority don’t. For instance, BofA doesn’t own BankOfOpportunity.com. Similarly, neitherTheNextStage.com nor WithYouWhen.com point to Wells Fargo. It’s not just banks and credit unions blowing this opportunity either. The Domain Name Marketing blog points outthat ItsMillerTime.com, DriversWanted.com and, yes, even JustDoIt.com aren’t used by the brands that coined these memorable expressions.

The main reason for a brand using a custom domain or URL rather than the main brand URL is because usually, the main brand is either a boring name, or is a group domain name, or worse, does not really align the product with the brand domain. But really, let’s face it a catchy tagline, a call to action, a slogan surely makes a better domain name – and one that’s usually easier to remember.

Micrsoites or special landing pages have tremendous potential and work much, much harder than a “What’s New” display banner tucked away into one corner on the main website. Giving a campaign, specially one that’s digital-centric and built around social media a custom domain name would be so nowthatsmakingmarketingwork.com