I remember a project at school as clearly as if it was yesterday (even though it was 20 years ago now). My Economics teacher stood at the front of the class and asked what the best Brand Names were? Brand? I’m 15 and interested in busty girls and driving lessons, I don’t even know what brand is. But this lesson really struck me and stuck with me for two more decades because what our teacher had to say was so true.

“Think of the best brand names!” Ok, there was Mars Bar (I’d just had one at break), the biro I was writing with…er ‘BIC’, Hoover, Kodak (on a roll now…), basically all the big names in that pre-Internet generation era. The teacher then pointed something rather obvious out. The names we’d shouted out and which he’d written on the blackboard as we did so were all meaningless in their own right. Only a good brand/advertising/association made them what they were. What was Kodak before they sold camera film or BIC before they sold razor blades and biros?

Of course, post Internet generation we have a whole new era of brands, and online brands as well but also more noticeably brands which specifically target kids. Ask a kid what a PS3 or Wii is and if you don’t get the correct reply he/she is either telling a fib or been on another planet. In fact kids love brand association. Nike are cool, all the biggest sports stars where their gear but what happened to Reebok? They are bouncing back but along with Puma (who have now made a good return to form) they made a spectacular fall from grace in the early 1990’s despite their designs being very similar to rivals Nike and Adidas. All that could have separated them was brand endorsements and slick advertising for which Nike in particular must be congratulated.

I wonder what the names shouted out from class would be if the teacher asked the same question today. Allegedly Google is now one of the worlds best known brands and then of course we have brands associated to one-off events like the infamous London 2010 logo which has caused so much controversy. Lot’s of people also mention or associate the ‘double o’ use in Internet brands: Google, Yahoo, Froogle (now gone) etc… I bet if you made up a ‘double o’ name and did a street survey asking what that brand ‘did’ most people would associate it with the web. See!? Even brand types have a brand!

In short, a brand is soooooo important to the success or not of a business that larger business have whole Brand departments. I worked in the City of London a number of years ago for a large UK bank and sure enough, there was a room full of post grad students sitting around and mulling over whether the logo should be on the left or the right and hunting down offenders who were so evil as to alter the size or aspect of the Bank logo on a publication of any kind. Probably not a good example but striking the right image begins with the first advert, click or sound. How clever were ‘Pentium’ with their little ditty? I probably couldn’t draw their logo but I sure as can hum their ditty which appears on every mention of their products on TV.

If you’re starting a new venture, consider brand first and foremost as the marketing war starts there.

Many of you are aware of the growing popularity of the internet, specifically in ecommerce for normal consumers. With that said, investors have made big steps in securing the future of the internet by acquiring, trading, and registering high-end domain names.In 2007 alone, domain name values have increased signifcantly. Here are a list of notable purchases:

Porn.com was purchased for $9,500,000 at Moniker (5-29-07)
SEO.com was purchased for $5,000,000 from Web Targeted.
Seniors.com was purchased for $1,800,000 at Moniker/T.R.A.F.F.I.C. (7-3-07)
Tandberg.com was purchased for $1,500,00 via Private Sale (2-13-07)
To see more of the top 50 domain purchases of the year, visit DNJournal.

The most expensive purchase ever was Business.com, which was bought for $7.5 Million. It recently was sold for $345 million to RH Donnellely, with estimated profits of $50 Million/year. Not a bad turn around huh?

Single word domains (also known as Dictionary Domains) are going for hundreds to ten’s of thousands of dollars everyday. Another hot commodity these days is 2 Letter and 3 Letter domains (example: sja.com and bd.com) which can sell for 5 to 6 figures.

With this increase in revenue for webmasters, many off line investment companies have not only tuned into these sales and are gunning for these premium domains.

It makes you wonder, what were you doing 5-10 years ago when domains like these were available for registration.