Nikki Rodriguez
Creative Director. Comedian. Storyteller.
Porkbun’s Registry’s Registrar
CONCEPT | STRATEGY | CHARACTER DESIGN | ILLUSTRATION | UI/UX | PRODUCTION
The challenge
Porkbun.com is a revolutionary domain company with the hopes of establishing a refreshing new way to manage and host domains. Almost by definition, the top level domain markets are saturated with companies managing anywhere from a single, dedicated domain extension, to companies that own multiple companies that manage thousands of domains. Porkbun was looking to make its mark in the market by offering these companies a registrar they can call home.
The challenge was in communicating this approach in an industry that is full of rival companies that have been around since the dawn of the internet, and newer companies that pop-up on a daily basis. All while being sensitive to the use of pig imagery and the unintended controversy among certain religious, animal rights, and dietary groups.
The Solution
We rolled out this new product by creating illustrations that capture the fun and vibrant energy that Porkbun brings to the industry, and then creating a Porkbun-inspired take on each of the domain extensions we work this. The product was given to certain key industry partners during beta testing and when the results were overwhelmingly positive, it was rolled out officially at an ICANN meeting. Each of the test domains we identified was given a set of physical stickers, and asked to search for their landing page on the Porkbun website, which by then debuted the pig for all our customers to identify with.
The Results
The detailed and bespoke approach to each of the B2B customers’ products on Porkbun revived attraction and excitement for the Porkbun user experience.
Customers were better-able to choose a top level domain extension based on the imagery that captured the energy of each of them.
The Porkbun social media presence experienced exponential growth. The character is so lovable, and a perfect representation of what this industry has to offer: all of the possibilities of the internet, paired with a truly enjoyable domain shopping experience.