During last night’s Oscars®, actor Christian Bale won an award and during his acceptance speech he plugged a boxing trainer that assisted him in his role in The Fighter movie. He said something like this "If you need a boxing trainer, go to DickEklund.com"

I’m not sure what the cost is to run a TV commercial during the Oscars but I’m sure it isn’t cheap. To have a plug DURING the show is something money can’t buy (well, maybe it can but you get my point). So when Christian plugged DickEklund.com it made me smile!

That got me thinking… what if Dick didn’t have a website? The plug likely would have been just words with Dick’s name being plugged!

What if Dick only had an 800 number? Christian likely would not have given a call to action!

The good for Dick

Dick has a website. He is the brand and his domain name matches his brand. His Name! Dick must have done a great job with Christian for him to drop the plug during the biggest night for that industry, so good for him!

The bad for Dick

Dick has a hard to spell surname. It was a split second and Christian pronounced Dick’s name and added .com to the end of it. A true call to action, but that split second has to register to those watching and it did for me. The problem, I slaughtered Dick’s surname with the spelling and had a hard time finding his site.

DickHecklin.com was my first spelling. DickHecklen.com was my next. I thought I heard Hec and not Ek.

After visiting Google and dropping in a couple different spellings and Dick’s site was found. If I didn’t see the term Boxing Trainer in the meta / title, I may have never found it.

So Dick Eklund is his brand, but having a confusing or hard to spell "name" to somebody that may have never heard or seen your name.. brings a great example for branding with domain names. Go Generic! Since Dick is a Boxing Trainer, what would make more sense to somebody that is looking for a Boxing Trainer than BoxingTrainer.com. Nothing!

The term Boxing Trainer would have made perfect sense in that split second Christian was dropping the plug, because he spoke of the boxing trainer and about the boxing training.

So would DickEklund.com or BoxingTrainer.com have been easier to remember when Christian dropped the plug? BoxingTrainer.com IMO! Easy to spell, easy to remember and most have heard the term already! The added bonus, people naturally "search for" a boxing trainer online. A LOT more than would search for the boxing trainer Dick Eklund.

That is why generic domain names are so valuable! Branding is important as well, but if that means it’s hard to find you / your site with your brand name, it doesn’t hurt to have another feather in your hat with a generic domain name!