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Earlier this week Pizza Hut announced that it would definitely be rebranding itself as Pasta Hut in the United Kingdom. But despite the vast spendings on the advertising and rebranding efforts, the company apparently forgot to register or buy the Pasta Hut name under all major generic top-level domains.
Pizza Hut/Pasta Hut did register PastaHut.co.uk and Pasta-Hut.co.uk, but it did not buy any of the other variations: PastaHut.com, PastaHut.net, PastaHut.info and so on. To be fair, PastaHut.com has already been registered in 2000. Still, Pizza Hut should have tried to acquire the domain from its current owner Kevin Smith prior to announcing the change of its name! What is downright ridiculous, is this quote of a Pizza Hut spokeswoman saying there was no reason for the company to have an interest in any of those domains at all.
It is needless to say that the other Pasta Hut TLDs have been quickly snapped up by cybersquatters after the company’s first Pasta Hut commercial was aired in April 2008, which many believed to be an April Fool’s Day joke at that time.
This is both an example of a company that does not understand the importance of a complete domain name portfolio and yet another example of why domain investors are having a hard time changing the image of their industry to the better.
Yes I saw a TV ad for the change in name a few days ago. It was evening and I was quite tired, so I thought I was seeing things.
To be honest, I didn’t know pasta was that much more popular than pizza to warrant such a change.
All the web is generic - that is the way it will be, its like trying to uninvent the horseless carriage - not having a generic search domain.
moral story - do not underestimate the power of domains. as simple as that.