Tour de France - not what it seems

This Saturday saw another chaotic start to the Tour de France with leading contenders wiped out in crashes on the first day. This reminds us of the unpredictability of live sport and in part is why I find the 3 week race so compelling. 

15+ years ago entering www.TourdeFrance.com took you to a porn site, for a different kind of polka dot jersey! Thankfully this was sorted out, but other brands also get caught out. 

One tomato ketchup brand ran a ‘scan the QR code on the bottle’ campaign. Forgetting that in some restaurants the bottle survives many changes of content, they later lapsed the domain name only for a 3rd party to re-register it and point it guess where … to a porn site. Not quite the family viewing the ketchup business prefers apparently, as they ended up paying $ seven figures to retrieve the lapsed domain name, so as to take down the hijackers site. 

The point is watching your brands online and especially domain names is a key part of good brand management and customer safety. Don’t be caught out red faced contact us today www.exaltip.com. 


#digitalmarketing #branding #startups #entrepreneurship #smallbusiness

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