Dell Refused To Spend $750 A Month On Adamo.com

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According to MSNBC.com Dell, Inc. refused to spend $750 a month to lease the domain Adamo.com prior to releasing new ultrathin laptop.

Dell was offered the $750 a month deal by Bill Sweetman, General Manager of Tucows owned Yummydomains.com.

“”””Yummy Domains General Manager Bill Sweetman said he initially approached Dell in February, about three weeks before the launch. Yummy Domains had noticed a spike in traffic after Dell gave a preview of the Adamo at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, he said.

He offered to lease the name to Dell for $750 per month or sell it for an undisclosed amount. But Dell’s advertising agency, Enfatico LLC, rejected the offer.

“I was kind of surprised,” Sweetman said. “They wouldn’t even spring for a $750 lease.”

But the company changed its mind when CEO Michael Dell learned of the situation through a business associate, who was also a Tucows Inc. board member. Dell officially launched the Adamo on March 17 and bought the domain name March 27, Sweetman said. He wouldn’t disclose the name’s price tag.”””

Another incredible example of how Madision Avenue just doesn’t get domains.

Congrats to Mr. Michael Dell who appearently does get it, and made the decision to spend the money to buy the domain over the objections of his ad agency.

Interesting story, check it out here:

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  2. Tony K says

    I don’t like that it was a domain registrar, Tucows, trying to lease the domain to them. I think that goes beyond what a registrar should be doing.

  3. MHB says

    Tony

    That is a whole different issue we you know we have discussed in depth.

    Under current rules registrars can do whatever they want in this regard.

    If you don’t like it comment to ICANN, comments close today

  4. Rob Sequin says

    Having a good domain for a company goes against the ad agency’s efforts.

    It is the job of the ad agency to spend money on branding to validate their existence. So, they will NEVER recommend that a company buy a good generic domain or even the domain of the product.

    If companies start getting traffic without ad agency help then they will start to realize that they don’t need the ad agency as much.

    You know who else does not like generic domains for their clients?

    WEBMASTERS.

    Whenever I have pitched a domain to an end user and they refer me to their webmaster or IT department, the deal is DEAD.

    Webmasters want their clients to spend money on design and SEO. God forbid they recommend to a client that they should buy a domain that gets type in traffic.

    Screw ag agencies and webmasters.

    They will NEVER recommend the purchase of a good domain.

  8. Steve says

    I agree with Rob also. My personal experience trying to get Salada or Tetley Tea to buy Whitetea.com, Greenteas.com and Whiteteas.com was an exercise in vain. With green tea and white tea commercials on tv 10 times a day you think they might want the actual domain names. Nada. After being referred to the ad agency they didn’t see any value in owning the words they were getting paid to develop an ad campaign for. Thick as bricks. With names like that I thought it would be a no brainer. Apparently not. It just takes a bit more work to find the right end user when you run into these attitudes.

  9. BullS-sites says

    Why ad agencies, and webmasters don’t care?

    Because they have a lot to lose and why do they care?

    There is no motivation or personal gain if they come up with a great domain name because it won’t belong to them.
    That why state govt have the worst domain names.

  10. Rob Sequin says

    Thanks.

    Avoid ad agencies, webmasters and IT departments. They are the enemy when it comes to domains. They will kill the deal.

    When the marketing guy tells me he will talk with his IT guy or webmaster I feel like telling him how it works but I just hang up and write it off as a dead deal.

    I haven’t been wrong yet.

  11. david says

    some companies seem to be real good at this, i think microsoft are one of the most agressive, even google gets it wrong once in a while.

    Im not sure if it was gmail or gdrive that they didnt own, but i guess they have millions to spend to buy it.