Owen Frager happens to be one of the smartest marketers I’ve ever met. His out of the box thinking has helped me explore things in ways I never contemplated. It’s been an honor to get to know Owen, and I am pleased that he has offered to participate in an interview with me. Owen’s been in the news recently, and he is making waves.Long before anyone had ever heard of domains — let alone the concept of “direct navigation,” in which users enter what they’re looking for not in a search engine but directly in their browser’s URL window — Owen Frager was creating names for products and services that spoke directly to customers’ needs. As opposed to the meaningless combination of letters and numbers or the pseudo-technical names so common in the ’80s and ’90s, the user-friendly names, positioning statements or slogans coined by Frager for companies, brands, programs, software and services have generated multibillion dollar revenues and continue to earn monthly residuals around the world.This would eventually become the founding principle of Frager Creative Group’s Domain Success, where Frager is now backed by an award-winning creative design and marketing communications team. Together they have decades of experience making even the most unknown or technically complex products and services easier for customers to understand and buy.One example of Frager’s early success comes from his years as a top producer turned promotions director for Silicon Valley-based Friden Alcatel, then a distant second in the postage-meter category. Seizing on the Olympics imagery of Alcatel’s torch emblem, Frager created, named and negotiated the “Friends of the Team” Olympics licensing promotion. This unprecedented program turned the Olympic rings into an exclusive postmark that enabled Alcatel customers to show their support for the U.S. Olympic team on every envelope they mailed — turning themselves into official sponsors without having to pay the $36 million sponsorship fee. The tremendously successful program enabled Alcatel to self-liquidate an Olympic sponsorship, previously the province of just a handful of the biggest, richest, brands. The program spiked Alcatel’s sales from $60 million to $120 million in just one year.In the naming arena, Frager-named services such as “Postage-On-Call” and “FriendShip” continue to drive sales for their current owner, Neopost, who bought the Alcatel mail systems division for ten times its pre-Frager value.Frager’s ideas also helped outsourcing, leasing and prescription drug pioneers each achieve half-billion dollar sales and become acquired by billion dollar brands. Under his purview, a major copier manufacturer grew a key product line 200% in two years. And a revamped marketing approach for Citrix Systems increased shareholder value by 400%.Though Frager has liquidated most of his domain portfolio over the years, he still holds hundreds of the world’s most valuable and exploitable domains along with the vision, creativity, relationships and content to generate marketing value and profits beyond anything seen in the domain industry to date. This may sound a bit grandiose, but given Owen Frager’s track record, he might just be the man to pull it off.—1) EJS: What is the best example of a Fortune 500 company that understands the domain business and has made wise acquisitions and marketing campaigns?OF: “Rob Sequin has done a better job of answering this question then I could here:http://searchdomainsforsale.com/creative-domain-marketing.htmYou either get ithttp://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/search?q=we+get+itOr you don’thttp://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/search/label/moron“2) EJS: What has been the biggest surprise or development in the domain industry over the last few years?OF: “To me, the biggest surprise has been the fact that the greatest Internet traffic success stories were not built on direct type-in navigation or Google search results, but on value created for customers and word of mouth. But honestly, this success should be no surprise because it’s based on proven principles of relationship marketing: creating a sense of community within carefully defined demographic or economic groups.i.e. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Plenty of Fish, My Year Book or Traffic.I think Rick’s Traffic overvalues all of his assets, and he developed it without a development team nor a single type-in… and on a domain that I consider not ideal.Like the other successes I cite, it’s all about having a central idea and making a human connection. The domain with traffic is a bonus. And true revenue is not limited to what one can earn online,As the fraternity of friends at Traffic shows, the more time we spend online the more we value time offline where we can meet, smell the roses, drink the wine, break bread and look each other in the eye and be healthier for it.There is a tremendous opportunity to innovate. Those who grasp this, adjust their domain strategies to suit, and stop senselessly piling on commodity technologies and instead deliver a truly branded and integrated experience will reap extraordinary rewards.”3) EJS: It sounds like a revolution taking place in the domain business?OF: “A revolution IS happening. And here’s the biggest surprise: Rick, you and I just registered our first names with blog after them. They were right there, available for the taking.We may have not considered that these could be worth more than any domain we own. Think Eliot Spitzer or NY Times Ad Columnist Stuart Elliott , Owen Wilson, Rick Dees and the future CEO of any company with those SAME names or future presidential candidate who needs a conduit for communication. There are millions of Elliot’s and only one Elliot’s blog. Now that we know firsthand what a blog can do, its power, we can appreciate the turbo-charge of having the name to boot.So every day I wake up and go to sleep learning that I still have a lot more to learn.”4) EJS: What needs to happen to make the domain investment business more mainstream, or at least acceptable?OF: “There are two issues here. First, the nomenclature and business cases are out of sync with the end prospect’s language set and accounting method. In fact AdAge argued today that the first stage of starting a revolution is to begin with the language.What if domainers started to change their marketing lexicon? For example, instead of referring to the marketing budget, what if they were to call it a loan? One that needs to be paid back, with interest? And that ROI should be recast as a profit or loss? And advertising and marketing channels should be viewed as alternative investment funds designed to maximize marketing profits?Many corporations are not concerned about traffic; they have traffic buying their products on the shelves in stores everyday. There’s more traffic in Safeway and Walgreen’s today than all the top sites and portfolios combined. But where is the domain visibility on millions of SKUs that could extract lifetime customer value by migrating the refills online and on auto-pilot for perpetuity, generation to generation?So the question is how do we leverage domains to make and keep those customers loyal, especially as products migrate off the shelves and as traditional “face-to-face” relationships matter less?The second issue is how to give the domain industry the makeover it needs. Maybe it’s a different pitchman, a front man, if even a hired actor. Video must be used to exemplify domain success and demystify the web/domain value chain. It needs to simplify the process for executive decision-makers who, for the most part, still depend on secretaries to print their email.”5) EJS: What do you think is the biggest threat to the domain investment business, and what is your recommendation to eliminate the threat?OF: “We need fewer gamblers in the business, as opposed to motivated entrepreneurs with a business plan.Gamblers play domains like a sport. They’re predators playing on the unsuspecting. They have no real business understanding or passion. They’re simply exploiting trademarks and typos so they can make a quick buck until told otherwise. They are cowards who hide in the shadows who aren’t even committed enough to defend themselves, losing WIPOs by default. To me they are really committing hate crimes and crimes against all domain humanity. Because their actions have caused all of us to be painted with the same brush and this has kept us from realizing our true value potentials.Gamblers, and by association, the true entrepreneurs among us who are running valid, successful businesses, are considered terrorists or thieves. And no one, regardless of how attractive a name may be, is going to set aside his or her moral principles and negotiate with a perceived terrorist or thief.What should be done about the gamblers? I’m not for big government, but maybe it will take regulations and license fees. Just like when a free site starts to charge, the grain gets quickly separated from the chaff. Look at how the cream has risen to the top on members-only boards or at Traffic when there’s a qualification process. You can’t drive a car without a license, travel without a passport, sell food or drugs without inspection. So how can one guy have thousands of bogus sites that stifle creativity, usurp or cause confusion with someone’s trade name, or just cause headaches for everyone else?Of course, there is always the “Dexter” solution”BONUS QUESTION!!!6) EJS: If you could have lunch with any Fortune 500 CEO, who would it be? And what would you discuss?OF: “Steve Jobs. Earthchamps.com, giftofsong.org, worldsgreatesthits.com, divatube.com, earthalert.tv (a viral PSA powered by the ipod widget), divacafe.com and Letmetellyouaboutmygrandchildren.com.”**Editor’s Note:Just for the record, I have reviewed some of what Owen has said regarding search engine optimization, and sure enough, he is accurate. In fact, his blog is currently #3 in Google out of 165,104 results for Apple, using the common AAPL stock symbol.