When I go out with friends, I am generally a beer drinker, but if I am drinking liquor it’s usually a Ketel One and soda or Ketel and Red Bull. If I am having a “tropical” drink, it will usually be something with Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum. I want to share what I think are a couple of liquor company domain name follies with you.
Captain Morgan is known for its Spiced Rum. They have other products of course, but if you ask for Captain and Coke, you’ll probably get a Spiced Rum. Smartly, Diago, the maker of Captain Morgan products, owns SpicedRum.com, and when you visit SpicedRum.com, you’ll be forwarded to CaptainYourHalloween.com. I assume this was for a short term promotion, but they never changed it back. To make things worse, CaptainYourHalloween.com is a parked page.
I emailed the Chief Marketing Officer of Diageo back in January of 2009 to let him know of the issue. We exchanged a few emails, and he put me in touch with the Director of Digital Marketing. It’s now over a year later, and the domain name still forwards to the same default parked page. Someone is making money on it, and it’s probably not Diageo.
The second liquor “faux paux” (in my opinion) comes from a company called Wodka Vodka. The have a large billboard on the Henry Hudson Parkway in New York City with a call to action, encouraging drivers to visit WeLoveWodka.com. As you can probably guess, WeLoveVodka.com is owned by another company. It wouldn’t be so bad if the W and V didn’t look so similar, but if you’re passing it at 50mph, chances are good that there will be a lot of people who visit the wrong domain name.
Two liquor companies using domain names poorly and should probably hire a domain consultant.