Target Using Logo “Emoji” for Domain Name

Nat Cohen sent me an interesting photo he took today, which I shared with readers below. It appears as if Target is using a Target logo emoji for its url promoting job opportunities at the company. Here is the photo Nat took – pay attention to the url that was shared twice in the advertisement:

Alas, this is not actually an Emoji domain name. To my knowledge, there are no Emoji .com domain names. In fact, according to the i❤️.ws website that helps people register Emoji domain names, ICANN prohibits Emoji .com domain names from being created:

I❤️.COM: DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH
Dotcom, dotnet, dotorg… as well as all those .ninja and .guru domain extensions — they’re gTLDs, bound by ICANN rules. That is to say, they won’t be allowed to register Emoji Domains until some international body yields to the march of progress.

While this might change in the future, for now, ICANN, the governing body of internet domain names, has banned the practice.

Apparently, while they allow all kinds of weird unicode characters in domain names, they don’t think emoji are a valid form of communication.

It looks like Target is just being creative and using their logo in place of Target.com. It says a lot about a company’s branding when they can simply put the logo in place of a proper url and people will still know what to do.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

19 COMMENTS

  1. What do you guys live under a rock? 😁 I have seen Target, Chili’s and Cheetos do this plus some others I can’t remember right now. Great marketing. Any well known brand can do this.

  2. Brands like to be cool and they are constantly innovating to stay fresh. That includes using new gTLDs – for example:

    Amazon.jobs

    Mastercard has just dropped its name from its logo and says that 80 per cent of people still recognize its identity:

    “Mastercard joins a small stable of brands like Nike, Apple and Target that rely on an image and not a name in most marketing materials.”

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/07/no-words-mastercard-to-drop-its-name-from-logo.html

  3. Years ago I told a Target agency we were working with that they should use the their “Target logo circle graphic” to replace the DOT in Target.com

  4. i think Target isn’t using the 🎯 “Direct Hit” Emoji which is on billions of phones, computer etc, but their own logo. Companies that own 1 character emoji domain names like 🚩.ws or 🐸.ws or 🔎.ws can use emoji that are already used globally to make easy to remember ulrs, forwards shortenrs and and websites.

    on Emoji .com domains there are some .coms out there, (about 100 grandfathered form the wingdings font and misc ones) but no new ones and no room for creativity or customization. i think it would be more accurate to say ICANN doesnt allow new emoji registrations in the left or right of the dot in the TLD’s for which it has jurisdiction.. and probably rightly so. Some confusion exists, not all registrars can handle …. but tens of thousands have been registered in .ws..who does a terrific job of clearing up the confusing ones… not to mention the fight in the IP constituency if they ever had to figure out trademarks…

    Emoji are better than glyphs because gylphs arent already on keyboards, virtual keyboards, smartphones and social networks.. and in the minds of billions.

    Emoji Domains are in color, graphical, and the worlds largest global language, they more popular with younger non domain oriented users..

    so yes ICANN says no in gtlds, but free market innovation finds a way, – almost like ICANN is the network TV – and .ws is a cable channel with some more freedom. More at https://www.emojidomaininfo.ws/ or
    emojidomainnames.com, and ednblog.com

    Page

  5. but as to the premise that pictures are more easily remembered, seems well accepted..

    John Harrison’s Medium Article quotes

    Additionally, an interesting and proven fact is that the human brain recalls images more easily than than words. It’s called the ‘picture superiority effect’ which essentially says a picture is coded more easily than a word which needs a dual coding process. A picture’s ease of coding means its also more easily retrieved.

    and

    “Visual ads require less exposure than verbal ads for long-term memory effect.”

    https://medium.com/@cjharrison/a-digital-marketers-guide-to-the-power-of-emoji-domains-9a64aebaefa0

  6. Page knows more about the emoji environment than I do.
    He is correct that .com emoji exist.
    I’ve two for sale, ✂.com xn--xbi.com and ☑.com xn--13h.com

    Some dozens of .com emoji are active. But when an emoji .com expires, it cannot be renewed or recovered.

    Was it reported elsewhere? Last week at least four .com emoji expired, and they are now unregistered but unavailable: xn--e6h.com xn--m3h.com xn--tci.com xn--n4h.com (♣.com ☂.com ✡.com ☦.com Black Club Suit, umbrella, Star of David, Orthodox Cross emoji). I tried to catch them at drop, but it was impossible. So Sad seeing them retired and lost to mankind!

  7. Any company that has a truly iconic logo can use this strategy. I listed a few below that when you see the logo followed by a .com there is no question exactly what it means. There are not hundreds of brands that can do this but if it’s iconic enough they can use this marketing strategy.

    Nike
    Superman
    Shell
    Apple
    Mercedes
    Chevrolet
    Pepsi
    John Deere
    BMW
    NBA
    Honda
    Target
    Mcdonalds
    Batman
    Rolex

  8. Sorry to be unclear. (As I understand it) After expiration there is no renewal; if dropped, can’t re-register. Normal renewals are OK

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