As reported here earlier, the domains buschgardenseurope.com and buschgardensafrica.com, which were unregistered, were snapped up by a private registrant shortly after TPI's report. I can't imagine that Busch would have to do a blind registration through GoDaddy.com for its domains. Which leaves me to believe that Busch foolishly did not bother to secure them before launching its new marketing campaign. (Nor, apparently, does anyone from Busch read this website.) In fact, the Busch Gardens website still refers to the parks by their old names.
Hey, Busch, the Web's a pretty powerful promotional medium now. Perhaps you might consider *using* it? (Oh wait, no one from there reads the site. Oh, well....)
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BUT it would be nice to know what consumer response testing they did for the proposed name changes, as I don't care for them at all. Sounds like BGE is IN Europe, not Europe-themed.
They didn't ask me, obviously ... wonder whom they did ask?
But Business 101 in the Internet era is "You register the .com version of all trademarks you use in public promotions and advertising." Sure, if you really want the domain, you can go to a hearing with the ICANN and get it turned over to you. But those procedures take time. And if Joe Cybersquatter decides to point yourtrademark.com to his porn affiliate site for a few weeks, well, then you have to deal with some very unflattering stories when that fact hits the press.
Which it will. Because even if the Busch PR department doesn't read TPI, reporters from the AP, several top newspapers and a few TV news networks *do*.
Even if Joe Cybersquatter doesn't go to that extreme, you don't want potential customers who type "buschgardenseurope" in their browsers, trying to get to your site, to end up on somebody else's.
Not that Busch Corp. did much to endear themselves within those communities, however, one can imagine that they will end up suffering the full bureaucratic wrath of town hall from now on.
Might have to go and register www.buschgardensamerica.com , that ones free for when they change back!
Readers in Virginia and the Tampa Bay area, are you hearing any backlash from locals about the name changes?
Me personally, I live in Richmond (30 minutes from Williamsburg) and I like the name change. It better explains what one is getting themselves into when visiting the park. I think it adds character.
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