Looking through some stuff on the web today and it amazed me how many people mis-spell “Ladbrokes”. Apparently last month there were over 60,000 Google searches for “Ladbrookes” and nearly 50,000 for “Ladbrooks”. It made me think how the Internet has changed branding concepts.
I mean back in the day, pre Internet, no-one probably thought twice about naming a brand with a pronunciation that sounded different to the spelling. But these days, potentially it not only allows traffic to bypass you, but also opens the door for competitors to capitalise. Or in Ladbrokes case, affiliates. That said, I notice that ahead of all the mis-spellings when you search on “Ladbrooks” or “Ladbrookes”, the real Ladbrokes still come top. But that’s largely down to Google’s intelligence I guess.
And even more amazingly we recently had the much hyped launch of the “Cuil” search engine (pronounced “cool”). Well I would have thought that, while clearly original, the name “Cuil” is going to miss out on some traffic. Ironic it’s a search engine, and even more ironic than on the day it launched, it didn’t even appear on the first page of it’s own search results.
Anyway, there you go…my thought for the day.
The 2006 UIGEA strikes! The long-standing and reputable Aussie based Lasseters has decided to close it’s online casino with immediate effect as a result of the changes in US law made 2 years ago this month.
“Following the announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange on 9 September 2008, the Directors have taken the subsequent decision to cease the operations of Lasseters Online Casino due to our inability to compete and retain our market share since the closure of the US market in October 2006.”
It came rather suddenly with everyone being emailed today. Turns out that they just can’t compete since the US introduced laws to prevent the flow of cash in and out of online gambling operations from players. That law is under increasing scrutiny with several politicians realising it’s folly are backing a new law to stamp on the original one. Quite right too as the perpetrators of the original UIGEA just didnt’ think it through - well they probably did, but votes rain down quicker on the moral high grounds. ”Ooh I know…let’s take steps to prohibit gambling and hope it goes away”. Or put another way, “Ooh I know…let’s get rid of the reputable operators and let the thieves in through the back door”. Brilliant Holmes!
D’oh!
And so here we have the first really high-profile reputable casino going down. No doubt the UIGEA politicians will pat themselves on the back at how well they are protecting their flock. Meanwhile some dodgy clip-joint will fill their place.
And the wheels of the universe keeps turning…