It has happened again, and a major automotive manufacturer, Bugatti, has failed its marketing and branding plan.
Announcing the availability of the Bugatti Chiron, the ultra-luxury exotic sports car has a price tag of $2.6 million dollars.
And yet, they failed to pre-register the matching .com domain, BugattiChiron.com.
How did that happen?
The new Bugatti Chiron. The .com isn’t owned by Bugatti. Photo courtesy of Bugatti.com.
Many exotic sports car launches are surrounded by rumors and sometimes the potential names discussed are eventually leaked out.
Those with inside information on the branding of a new car model, often sneak the info out to rumor blogs and other automotive publications.
That’s what probably happened in the case of BugattiChiron.com, a domain registered – not to Bugatti – in 2014, according to DomainTools.
The question is, can the domain’s owner profit from a brand that only now became public, but was based on a leak or a rumor two years ago?
We’ve seen UDRP cases being filed for less; a quick search reveals several such cases by Bugatti International.
But they got chiron.bugatti !
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Domain Name: CHIRON.BUGATTI
Creation Date: 2016-02-29T17:48:35Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2017-02-28T17:48:35Z
Sponsoring Registrar: Afilias Limited
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 9999
Kev – Great find. And it does not resolve, LOL.
Go to http://nic.Bugatti for some interesting content.