{"id":221,"date":"2012-02-27T14:03:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T19:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom.chainstoreguide.com\/2012\/02\/overstocking-a-great-brand-to-o-co-blivion\/"},"modified":"2012-02-27T14:03:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T19:03:00","slug":"overstocking-a-great-brand-to-o-co-blivion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/2012\/02\/overstocking-a-great-brand-to-o-co-blivion\/","title":{"rendered":"Overstocking a Great Brand To O.co blivion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two of the most memorable website launches of all time, both of which remain strong in my memory, were for Internet-only companies, both of which now reside in Chain Store Guide\u2019s Database of Discount Stores &Specialty Retailers<\/a>, in the General Merchandise section.\u00a0 I still recall the radio commercials which introduced Amazon.com as the new concept on the book retailing block, offering a then new type of alternative from which to conveniently purchase the books one desires at prices often more attractive than traditional retailers (brick and mortar was a term about to be coined).<\/p>\n

When Overstock.com launched, the name pretty much told the story.\u00a0 Here was an Internet-only startup which sourced masses of generally closed-out goods for resale.\u00a0 The company name required little commercial time to elaborate on the concept.\u00a0 I wondered if industry veterans like Big Lots, which themselves have a pretty descriptive name, were envious.\u00a0 Ross added the descriptive \u2018Dress for Less\u201d for a reason.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year I came upon a wave of commercials aimed at redirecting customers to a new name for the Overstock site.\u00a0 Suddenly the company was offering incentives to promote visits to its sleek new name, O.co.\u00a0 My first reaction was why smother a wonderfully descriptive name like Overstock.\u00a0 The wave of introductory commercials seemed to point to the new moniker as a replacement for the original name.<\/p>\n

I immediately knew I had to add O.co to the company\u2019s CSG listing.\u00a0 Our database\u2019s Overstock.com link still functioned perfectly.\u00a0 Yet when I tried to add the new name I came upon a clearly different company.\u00a0 Out of an understandable habit, I had been seeking the new website with a .com<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 I tried .co and finally got to the essentially old site through the new configuration.<\/p>\n

I felt a bit foolish to have missed the new nomenclature and thus entry to the website by the exclusion of a single but all important letter.\u00a0 However, while from my first hearing the name Overstock.com made perfect sense as a self-descriptive brand, the new O.co immediately seemed far from a phrase that easily tripped off the tongue and meant nothing on its own save as a cute, new age shortcut.<\/p>\n

Apparently I was not nearly the only one to miss the boat on this point.\u00a0 Despite corporate management\u2019s implementation of a heavy saturation of commercials, the introductory ad campaign\u2019s attempt to inculcate the population with the hot new, can\u2019t miss website address, indeed had missed.<\/p>\n

At the time of the advertising barrage, it seemed the plan was to ultimately do away with the Overstock tie-in.\u00a0 I thought that if that was the ultimate plan, what a shame not to keep so descriptive a title as to naturally invite new customers as they come of age or reach our shores.\u00a0 And how helpful was the term overstock as international customers explore American webtailing?<\/p>\n

Early on, a retail forum explored the question of just how good an idea it was to switch from Overstock to a seemingly new age Internet title.\u00a0 The participants were unusually united in their pessimism on the name change.\u00a0 Apparently their point of view was well taken as the company has completely reverted to its Overstock title and heritage.<\/p>\n

It seems most people continue to think of the company and its site as Overstock.com.\u00a0 Others continued to type in O.com <\/span><\/strong>and until recently reached an unrelated website.\u00a0 Some industry experts equate this to the recent Netflix boondoggle.\u00a0 However where Netflix quickly exited the notion of the additional branded website with the odd spelling of Qwikster, the Overstock brain trust has indicated that it is merely retrenching, slowing the shift in branding so as not to lose a decade of brand equity.<\/p>\n

While at year\u2019s end 2011 many marketing experts were urgently warning the company away from another round of new name rebuffs by consumers, another player in the dotcom naming game may have recently provided a strong impetus to retry the O.co brand.\u00a0 Since the Super Bowl, Go Daddy has been heavily promoting sales of .co offerings through an eye catching series of commercials.\u00a0 If running repetition of these ads and Go Daddy\u2019s tie-in incentives to viewers for a follow-up visit to its website are successful, the .co confusion may be broken and Overstock may retry O.co.<\/p>\n

At the moment it seems the only unique branding of O.co remains on the edifice of what was once known as the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.\u00a0 The long-time home of both the Oakland Athletics and the iconic Oakland Raiders among others, will maintain its most recent name change to the O.co Coliseum, at least for the moment.\u00a0 This, after many naming shifts through recent years, from the original Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (commonly called The Oakland Coliseum), to Network Associates Coliseum, McAfee Coliseum, and Overstock.com Coliseum.\u00a0 Perhaps these naming-rights shifts best sum up the changing and illusive landscape of branding strategy inAmerica.<\/p>\n

If and when Overstock decides to again promote and feature O.co, I strongly suggest the company aggressively maintain the Overstock.com brand as well.\u00a0 Right now Googling O.co simply brings shoppers to the name Overstock.com, as if O.co is a brand of the past.\u00a0 Even to a neophyte, the term overstock is strongly suggestive of a retailer offering bargains in order to lose excess inventory.\u00a0 To most consumers it is a brand that naturally promotes itself, inviting visitors with little additional fanfare or cost to the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two of the most memorable website launches of all time, both of which remain strong in my memory, were for Internet-only companies, both of which now reside in Chain Store Guide\u2019s Database of Discount Stores &Specialty Retailers, in the General Merchandise section.\u00a0 I still recall the radio commercials which introduced Amazon.com as the new concept… Continue reading Overstocking a Great Brand To O.co blivion<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discount-specialty","tag-insight","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}