The Association for Interactive Marketing has dropped the domain name “iMarketing.org” at the request of Adrian Courtenay, president of Courtenay Communications, who was concerned that the name was too similar to that of “iMarketingNews.com” affiliated with the Courtenay-owned newspaper iMarketing News.
The new site name adopted by AIM, which is the online arm of the Direct Marketing Association, is www.InteractiveMarketing.org.
Courtenay, who had contacted both AIM and the DMA about the matter after seeing a press release describing the AIM site's intended change of name from InteractiveHQ.org to iMarketing.org, expressed appreciation that the matter was resolved quickly and amicably.
“We thought there was a trademark issue and a possible source of confusion,” Courtenay said, “but we're very pleased that [DMA president/CEO] Bob Wientzen and Ben Isaacson acknowledged our concern and acted quickly to remove the problem. Although we don't want to be confused with other organizations, we're serving similar audiences and we respect the unique ways that AIM is serving its constituency.”
“We're trying to better align ourselves with the traditional marketing industry — people who are still getting into the Internet, still trying to figure out how the Internet works — and more closely align ourselves with the DMA,” said AIM executive director Ben Isaacson. “Most people already consider us the Association for Interactive Marketing.”
According to Isaacson, the InteractiveMarketing.org site contains calendars and previews of upcoming events, a section of “advocacy pages” and a “Stop Spam” page, among other features. He indicated that the advocacy section offers issue briefs, a congressional directory, an overview of AIM's advocacy initiatives and a “legislative action center” where visitors can find local and national media contacts, track pieces of legislation and learn how their representatives are voting on them.
AIM was originally founded in 1993 as the Interactive Television Association. It became the Association for Interactive Media in 1996. The InteractiveHQ.org domain was chosen in 1996 to reflect the association's interactive television, entertainment, media and content focus. The DMA acquired AIM in the fall of 1998.
