Guthy-Renker is a direct marketing company. In March 2018, they acquired a minority interest in Mally Beauty for an undisclosed amount. The minority interest includes marketing and direct to consumer efforts via e-commerce for the Mally Beauty brand, according to the article.
What approach will Guthy-Renker be taking?
Well, they went for the jugular and acquired the very best domain name for the beauty brand, Mally.com. The domain name has been registered since July 3, 1996 and was owned by Dave Mallinson of the UK prior and used for his Mally’s Traditional Music Store. That didn’t stop Guthy-Renker from securing the Mally brand, removing the restricting “beauty” from the current domain and brand name. You have to pay to play and some investments are vital to a brand and the main domain name is one of those!
The current website is using MallyBeauty.com, yet the products are branded simply as “Mally”. Mally.com is the domain name that is vital to this brand. If you are going to brand as “Mally”, your website has to to be “Mally.com”, because it just makes sense!
Looks? It is a beauty product and a domain name is a thing of beauty as well. Mally.com vs MallyBeauty.com. One is much better looking to me than the other and one is much easier to remember as well.
Guthy-Renker continued with several other domain name registrations, some protection, some providing options. GetMally.com, GetMallyBeauty.com were two registrations. These can be used in ads, online efforts in specific locations that allow tracking to see how the campaigns are doing and more. MyMally.com and MyMallyBeauty.com hold a personal connection with the potential customer and again provide Guthy-Renker with options. They can be used in email marketing to existing customers, offers special discounts for reordering and much more.
MallyReviews.com was another registration, another option to use if needed. Then comes some “protection” domains like MallieBeauty.com, MallyLawsuit.com, MallyClassAction.com and MalyBeauty.com.
So, what did we learn?
MallyBeauty.com made them this far. Mally.com, with the help of Guthy-Renker, is going to take them to the next level. Being on the next level often includes the company owning the very best domain name to be part of the puzzle to success. Mally.com isn’t the only puzzle piece, but an important one that Guthy-Renker wisely acquired and will put to work soon.
Now they have money to spend on ECC, just like you start decorating the home extra with extra. it is a suitable decoration.
This is a textbook quality description of a textbook quality example of a well executed domain and brand strategy. Great name – MALLY.
Presumably Guthy-Renker consulted with MarkMonitor and got it right.
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This kind of challenge to match products, brands and domains is sure to occur more and more in the future.
Recent examples highlight this. Rolls-Royce named their first all-terrain SUV the “Cullinan” and Porsche have just named their new electric car the “Taycan”.
Neither auto group owns the matching dotcom domain name (which both represent genuine prior businesses) though they aren’t essential outside the core brand of course. But they would be valuable assets to hold.
CNBC has just reported that following the colossal AT&T deal, Time Warner will be changing its name to WarnerMedia, according to a memo they have seen. This will differentiate it from Time Warner Cable.
However, WarnerMedia.com is parked with the message:
“The warnermedia.com domain is available for license or purchase. Select offers will be considered.”
This will be a problem similar to the situation of the squatters holding DowDupont.com. These isolated cases are bad for the image of domain investors.
Brands and domains are becoming more and more intertwined and the stakes are getting bigger.