KFC® has teamed up with the Susan G Komen foundation to raise awareness about breast cancer. KFC is donating $0.50 of every pink bucket of chicken they sell and has totaled over $3 Million at time of posting. A goal of $8.5 Million is set for May 9, 2010. Anytime people or companies are donating to charity it is a good thing in my eyes, so congrats go out to those doing it.
KFC is using a microsite to help promote the cause and rolled out a site at BucketsForTheCure.com . The site is nice, to the point and has a couple nice features on it. You can learn more about breast cancer on the site, as well as visit Komen.org or KFC.com from the microsite. The site also connect with social media.
One thing that stuck out at me and it is hard to put blame when a cause like this is being done, but it would appear KFC created the site or hired a company and likely registered the domain name BucketsForTheCure.com back in December 2009. Privacy protection is on the whois records currently but did display SD Enterprises when the domain was first registered.
Either way, whoever registered the domain name didn’t secure the singular version of the main domain name BucketForTheCure.com, which likely gets visits from typos.
It is always important to cover common typos like a singular and plural version of a term if one is used. Some will forget the S and some will add an S to a term because it can be easy to forget if the term was singular or plural.
Sadly according to whois records a Jeff Ibrahim of Westlake Village, California purchased the singular version of the domain name shortly after KFC launched the campaign in April and has the domain parked with Sedo.com currently trying to make money with it!
It would be nice if things like this didn’t happen, but it is preventable in most cases if action is done at the start to cover these type of domain purchases. I wouldn’t say there is a need to purchase "all" TLD’s but it is best to cover the TLD you will be using as the main site. Since the campaign is likely not public, it is best to register and forward the typo domains to your main site before launching the site.
If one were to be using a .org instead of .com, it is a great idea to own the matching .com when you can, because the term can become a TLD typo as well. The more you cover your bases the likely hood of you getting the maximum amount of traffic attended for your site, the better!
If you can donate, please consider. Checkout the microsite below and let me know what you think of it. I like the design and think it is a great use of a domain/site to help promote the campaign!
On The Web:
Attila
I love when I see a good cause under way.
Though, doesn’t eating fried chicken make people fat (err un healthy) and the more fried chicken they eat, the more fat (err more un healthy) they get and eventually lead to cancer?
Kind of ironic when you see a deep fried chicken supplier like KFC promote buckets (with an s pertaining to several buckets a user should eat) to help push and donate for a good cause.
And more ironic or coincidental, I just had a KFC fried chicken burger for lunch, this was before I read this article :-*( though didn’t see any promotions in their China location store. Though it might be a US based promotion…
Jeff Ibrahim
Great topic.
I’m glad you addressed the importance of singular and plural domain names. This issue gets looked over many times and it’s the easiest and cheapest part of the process.
like you said, It is definitely important cover common typos, especially singular and plural version.
I was shocked that a marketing company working with someone like KFC and Susan G. Komen dropped the ball on this campaign and did not get both domains. I also tried to contact the web administrator regarding this matter to no avail.
I only got the domain name to prove a point. My Mom is a breast cancer survivor and any cancer organizations hold dear to my heart. Being that I’m in the marketing/advertising industry, I wanted to use this situation as a learning tool for my clients and others. I also wanted to track and see exactly how many hits a singular v.s. plural domain name would get in an nationwide ad campaign such as bucketsforthecure.com.
Surprisingly, singular v.s. plural theory I believe in and what you discussed might not hold true. The domain didn’t get as much hit as I imagined. I was in the thousands, but not hundreds of thousands like the real domain, bucketsforthecure.com. But I’m sure it still deterred some people when they went to the wrong site.
Lesson learned I hope, Cheers,
Jeff Ibrahim