• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, August 23, 2016

Here's something you may not have known. Very popular El Segundo-based ad agency David & Goliath does not own davidandgoliath.com. Nope. It's owned by a Dallas-based agency (I know which one but they really, really don't want me to say who it is) who's been using it for years and only recently switched over to a domain more suitable to their actual name. 

Of course David & Goliath, the ad agency, wants davidandgoliath.com and has for some time. Right now they're stuck with dng.com, shorter but doesn't really say much. So, because this Dallas-based agency is an ad agency and ad agencies never do business the boring normal way, they decided to have a little bit of fun in the form of a video ransom stunt. 

A series of videos featuring two masked men are being released daily this week. In the videos, hosted on urlransom.com, we see that a poor little laptop that's standing in for the davidandgoliath.com domain name is being held captive until David & Goliath pays up. In the second video, the two masked men...OMG...pry off the laptops keys! There will be three more videos until all is revealed or, I assume, David & Goliath pays up. 

The Dallas Agency, while holding davidandgoliath.com captive and demanding David & Goliath pay up, isn't all bad. All they want is for David & Goliath to donate to their charitable foundation. That said, I'm guessing even if David & Goliath doesn't pay up, the Dallas agency is going to hand the domain over any way since they're now quite happy with their new, more apropos URL. 

Hey, this is way more fun than a long, drawn-out legal battle complete with cease and desists and all manner of silly posturing, right?