As you know,it is difficult to turn a slow moving ship.
Many large companies are staffed by people who have legacies, jobs and backsides to protect. Decisions made in the past need to be supported and leading-edge disruptive technologies may not be conducive to doing so. It takes brave leaders to introduce new ideas that may buck the trends that past decisions were predicated on. In short, don’t expect multinational conglomerates to sidle up and get cozy with .tel before the obligatory committees, research polls and focus groups are exhausted. And that my friend takes time.

To be sure, we need to continue to make those introductions and inroads and demonstrate the benefits of .tel especially when, as you point out, it works in concert to support current marketing, sales and promotional efforts. Here in Toronto we’ve adopted a marketing plan targeted to specific large organizations, in this case the exclusive distributors of beer, wine and spirits in the Province of Ontario. Each of these distributors has hundreds of retail outlets throughout the province and finding store locations and phone numbers from their main websites is time-consuming and frustrating.

We picked up their respective trademarked brands (on recent drops) with the explicit intent to populate the .tels with basic contact information – store locations, maps, phone numbers and hours of operation and to present it to them as a gift for them to use as they see fit. Obviously we hope that they take up the offer and use and promote the .tels.

The companies are The Beer Store and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO)

As of the time of writing this post, each of the respective companies have been contacted, they have seen the .tels that we created and were intrigued enough to agree to discuss the potential with senior management teams. If it works, it will have been well worth the $20 for the domain, the time populating it with content and making the approach. At the very least, we’re happy that we secured their trademarked domains and returned them to their rightful owners.