PizzaHut Rebrands in the UK and Forgets to Register the Domains First

Pizza Hut is temporarily changing its name to Pasta Hut to highlight its eight new pasta dishes, with nine restaurants changing their signage immediately, in the UK

It registered the domain Pastahut.co.uk.

However it failed to register any other extension including the ..net or .org or .info

Not suprising that Pastahut.net, Pastahut.info and Pastahut.org have been registered and the sites filled with Google-style pay-per-click links, according to domain name specialist NetNames.

Pastahut.com was registered many years ago.

However, apparently Pizzahut did not attempt to buy this domain before the announcement was made.

According to reports the pizza chain plans to invest £100m over the next six years to revamp its 700 restaurants in the UK but according to NetNames it has overlooked implementing a solid online brand protection strategy by not registering some of its most valuable domains.

Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer of NetNames, said: “It never fails to surprise us how quick off the mark cybersquatters are to register the domains of major brands where given the opportunity.

“The UK subsidiary of Pizza Hut will have spent much time and money planning for this rebrand, however they have failed to register some of the key domain names relating to their online brand.”

Its Incredible that a company would have plans to spend 180 million dollars to rebrand itself but not think of registering a few hundred dollars of domains and spending several thousand to acquire the .com version.

Now the media will give the domain industry another black eye, although “big business” once again proved incompetent in protecting its brand in the quickest, simplest manner.

Source: http://www.thedomains.com/2008/10/08/pizzahut-rebrands-in-the-uk-and-forgets-to-register-the-domains-first/