It just seemed odd to me that on the one hand they try saving a relatively small amount of money by looking for an available name instead of buying a generic like greetingcards.co.uk which would probably have cost a few £grand back in 2000. And on the other hand they then go on to spend what must be £millions on TV ads to advertise their brand, a considerable percentage of which would have been to associate it with greeting cards.
OK, you might still argue you need to advertise a generic as well, but we all know that a good generic with a bit of SEO wizardry can top search engine results, and the product is self-explanatory from the domain. I doubt I need to go into the benefits of generics on this forum (!) but Edwin elucidates them as well as anyone on his site
http://www.memorabledomains.co.uk/
I agree they have done a really good job on getting the message out with the TV ads. The ads are fun, original, quirky, I even like the song they have come up with. But anyone can get a brand well known if you throw enough money at advertising it. I wonder what the profit level is like after the cost of the advertising has been deducted, and how much of it has had to go to investors or to service debt to pay for the costly ads. There are plenty of companies out there which are well known but which have high costs, giving them relatively small amounts of profit and are at risk of going under if faced with even a temporary decline in revenue, especially in a recession.
It just seems to me a bit funny that an Internet company has overlooked a relatively low cost, low risk, stable, means to draw in traffic, and yet has seemingly gone mad with a TV advertising spend that must be in the same league as many huge multi national companies.
I wish them well though. It's a very original brand and it's very refreshing to see a British home grown Internet company becoming a household name.