For a while, .co domains have been positioned as the next best thing, or the next big thing after .com. Belonging to Columbia and only recently becoming available, .co domains have proven quite popular with some companies, both Amazon and Google have acquired single-letter .co domains.But one domain name in particular has been the poster boy for .co, Overstock.com's O.co. The company wanted a new image and it though that the new simple and short domain name was the way to go.
In a move reminiscent of the good old bubbly days of the early internet, the company based all of its branding around the new domain. This meant changing everything on the site, TV and magazine advertising, even changing the name of a NFL stadium.
It turns, that wasn't such a good idea and that consumers, at least in the US, were confused by the change. Even the people that wanted to see the new site ended up typing o.com. O.com is reserved by ICANN.
So much so that the company is now going back to the Overstock.com brand and will use that on the site and its commercials. The stadium stays unchanged though. Internationally, O.co will continue to be used.
"We were pleased with the early customer acceptance of O.co as a shortcut for Overstock.com and thus moved the rebranding efforts to the next gear. Many customers reacted positively, and others expressed that the transition was happening too quickly," Overstock.com
explained.
"What we learned was that we haven’t yet adequately transferred the decade of brand equity we have in Overstock.com. So, we’re down-shifting the re-branding effort in order to leverage and transfer that brand equity," it added.
In the big picture, the move probably doesn't mean too much for .co. The domain name wasn't the problem, the way the company communicated the changes probably was.
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