Times Square OOH campaign copy for Hostinger
Ah, The Big Apple.
I’ve been fortunate enough to take a bite out of it a few times and like everybody else who has explored the Concrete Jungle, it made an indelible mark on me. So, when the chance arose to make my mark on New York City, I popped the (admittedly, chewed) lid off my biro to start scribbling faster than you could say (or sing) “where dreams are made of”.
The brief: A line of short-form copy with a creative concept around the .icu domain product, in partnership with leading domain registry ShortDot. A static asset that needed to appeal to the product’s defined demographic but also serve as a strong ATL awareness campaign for the Hostinger brand. Copy cool enough for an OOH billboard placement in the middle of Times Square.
ShortDot started by getting us up to speed. The ‘.icu’ (I See You) TLD is an “avant-garde domain extension” that “caters to the forward-thinking, especially tech-savvy millennials and new-age brands”.
The first few attempts we came up with went something along the lines of:
For creators who do things differently - Missing any reference to websites and/or online creativity.
For online creators who do things differently - Hmm. Too vague. What ‘things’?
A domain for fresh perspectives - Too fluffy.
Become more visible with a .icu domain - Okay, not bad but not great. Still a bit vague. Still no ‘website’ keyword.
We also played around with the word ‘Peekaboo’ for a while but it just didn’t feel right for a techy target audience.
We eventually landed on a line of copy that I felt ticked all the right boxes, Get more eyes on your website with a .icu domain, accompanied by the brand’s slogan, ‘Three, Two, Online’.
We decided to take the design one step further by adding the universally recognised 👀 Emoji to replace the word ‘eyes’.
We felt it spoke to the digital nature of the domain product and the Hostinger brand but would also resonate with the millennial online creator we wanted to appeal to. A really nice example of conceptual synergy between the message and the visual don’t you think?
So, there we have it, copy penned across the pond, up in the big bright lights.
How do you like those apples, high school careers adviser who told me pursuing a career in the creative industry wouldn’t take me anywhere? 👀
Why is it that the shortest form copy is always the hardest to write? Let me get creative within the confines of character limits to save you the headache.