Brand Spillage - How to Lose 68 Million Hits!

12 July, 2007 - General Business - 6 Comments

Brand spillage is a term coined by my friend, Aussie Bob. I know Bob through the WebHostingTalk forums, and he often talks about this thing called “brand spillage”. Since Bob started using the term, I’ve used it several times too, and if you do a Google search for the term, you’re likely to find my name against several of the results on the first page. So, just what is “brand spillage”? The best way to explain is by way of example.

UTube.com Vs YouTube.com

I think it’s safe to say the whole fiasco between YouTube.com and Utube.com was quite a public affair that most people are aware of. For those that don’t know, the essence of it is that at the end of 2006, Utube.com, a tube & rollform equipment corporation, was being hammered with millions of Web site hits from people trying to find the video sharing Web site, YouTube.com. I believe it peaked in August last year, where UTube received 68 million hits to its Web site, which eventually crashed. That’s 68 million hits that YouTube lost out on, and that’s brand spillage!

The whole thing ended in UTube filing a lawsuit against the video sharing Web site, and I believe that lawsuit is still ongoing. Before somebody says it, nobody would want those 68 million hits a month. Those visitors who racked up the hits were looking for videos. They were not looking for tube and rollform equipment. The cost of bandwidth for your site, as well as the cost of downtime from the sheer amount of traffic, far (far far far) outweighs the income (or lack of) generated from those 68 million hits.

Only stupid people do that!

Don’t think anybody would be so stupid to type UTube.com as opposed to YouTube.com? Think again! Back in November, my Dad, who uses the Internet five days a week and sends a lot of emails, had heard a lot of hype about YouTube but hadn’t seen how it was spelt (He had heard most of the hype over the radio). One day, he sat in front of our home PC and decided to find out what all the fuss was about. I was astounded when I looked up from my desk after he asked if he had spelt it correctly, and I saw he had typed “UTube” in to Google. Case in point, right there!

Rookie Error!

This whole thing was a massive oversight on the part of the three YouTube founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Sure, it may not have affected them in a huge way due to how fast YouTube took over the video sharing market, but if this was a smaller company then losing visitors to a Web site with a similar domain name could be crucial in the success or failure of the new venture.

When you’re developing a new Web site or new company, keep brand spillage in mind. Make sure to register all major extensions of your Web site/business name, and register any common alternatives to the name. When I registered BlogAdReviews.com a few days ago, I also registered BlogAdvertReviews.com. If the latter domain had not being available, there is no way I would have registered the former. I’m not going to lose customers by making the same rookie errors that Chad Hurley and co made!

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Posted on 12 July, 2007 by Jamie Harrop
Filed Under General Business |

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6 Comments»

Comment by Jason
2007-07-13 01:10:54

Some people unknowingly arrive at Utube.com, but the site is completely unrealted to video. Most people probably learn the first time and never return to Utube.com. You would think the owner of UTube.com would try to advertise on his site a little better than a list of ads at the top. Then he could at least take advantage of the traffic a little better.

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Comment by Jamie Harrop
2007-07-13 08:32:43

I thought about that Jason, but it seems some people are too, how shall we put it… stupid, to realise it isn’t the video Web site.

The rollform company have received thousands of angry emails from people asking where the videos are. There’s another cost right there… the cost of staff dealing with those emails each day.

I’m guessing the reason they haven’t put more ads on the site is because they have a lot of legit customers who use the site. To downgrade their experience due to a problem that doesn’t effect the legitimate users probably isn’t the type of thing they want to do.

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Comment by Nick Subscribed to comments via email
2007-07-13 16:22:55

Could you image the sheer luck of utube if it was mildly related to youtube. 68 million visitors for free, with no work or promotion would have been a gold mine.

There is also a problem with people always assuming the site is .com since there are mainy more .ca names availble it’s much easier to find a .ca to register then a .com but you run the risk of losing the traffic to a .com site even if you are solely targetting a Canadian audience.

I’ve had many people .ca.com ? Some people just assume the .com must be there and these are not first time users of the Internet.

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Comment by Jamie Harrop
2007-07-17 15:31:56

Well, if it was related to YouTube, then YouTube would never have formed, because it would have been trademark infringment on their part because UTube was started many years before (at least I think so). :)

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Comment by chrisblogging.com
2007-07-13 18:37:21

I agree Nick. If the owners of Utube.com had any sort of related content they could have cashed in big time!

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Comment by Fatgadget
2007-07-17 15:25:03

All Utube had to do was launch a video sharing site on their domain, or something cool relating to videos and they could have made use of thos 68 million visitors.

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