Back earlier this year, we told the story how American Express failed to secure the rights to BlackCard.com allowing its main competitor Visa International to grab the domain of one of its best known products.
Today AMEX announced the launch of a new branded credit card geared to twenty somethings, the Zync Card, an obvious typo of the proper spelling which would be Zinc Card.
On October 9th the domains zinccard.com and zinccards.com were registered by a company using a London England address and are going to a Godaddy Parked page, showing as the first results, an ad for American Express.
The Domain Zynccard.com is registered to Iron Mountain one of those “domain management” companies that offer “digital brand protection” to their clients.
Yet the domain name zynccard.com is not going to an AMEX site but also a Godaddy landing Page and once again showing as the first results, an ad for American Express.
Its not clear if Iron Mountain registered the domains on behalf of AMEX as paid consultant, but there is no excuse for not registering domains using the proper spelling of a product AMEX is planning on branding.
If this domains were acquired for the benefit of AMEX, it blows my mind that these domain names are going to a parked Godaddy page rather than to a site of AMEX or even just to coming soon page.
I guess they meant to use Zync to look like Sync.
Seb
Except Sync has a meaning
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sync
whereas zync has none
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/zync
michael,
In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “stupid is as stupid does”.
larry
.
“Zinc Card” sounds a bit macabre … like a credit card for funeral services… :E
.
A “zinc” card? Really?
That’s the best they could come up with?
What’s next; the tin, lead . . . or folic acid card?
Some how I think AMEX with all its resources will dispatch this quite handily when all is said an done, they do have lawyers you know who are sitting about just waiting for the call to launch their own brand of sorts directed at those who would like to match resources?
You domainers who are tampering with these corporations are going to be given quite an education me thinks?
“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it! You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars. It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.”
You will atone-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzSj1yNZdY8
.
whats next from Amex? …maybe… the “Kryptonite Card” ? 🙂
.
that is funny. it sounds like they are using reverse-arbitrage on their own keyword. instead of forward the domain to their site they are paying for clicks. oops
I think it’s in response to Chase Sapphire. We have moved on from bullion to minerals. I think they have a big overlooked opportunity on the “green card” in this day and time– they don’t own that either,
Well, I own myzynccard.com Whoops! HAHA
myblackcard.com is owned by Visa, so if this card takes off, it could be a nice payday!
I assume that the attorneys at AMEX will file injunctions seeking to recover the domain names. But what an unnecessary hassle and expense when they could have spend 10 bucks and protected their brand.
Plus, it is such a unique name that I doubt those domains were registered prior to AMex launching that new product.
I always recommend that a new brand/company have about a dozen different people go type in the company url – and then register all the various misspellings and typos that those people use. (Of course in addition to the obvious misspellings and registering the .net and .org versions)
If you notice the Whois Database. Amex purchased “Thezynccard.com” on October of 09. It appears they will use that site to build their card. As you mentioned above, “thezinccard.com” the obvious misspelling is owned by a random individual…..
in my twenties i wore zinc oxcide on my nose and carried a tube onto my lifeguard stand.
now my sons are in their twenties and they can carry the zinc in their pockets.