The other night, I was at dinner with my wife and she pointed out that, in addition to the usual sweeteners (sugar, Equal, Splenda, etc), the restaurant also had a stevia sweetener.  I had not heard of stevia before, and was unfamiliar with this particular brand, Stevia Extract in the Raw (SEITR), so I picked up the packet to take a look. 

Stevia is a plant with sweet leaves from which a low-calorie sweetener can be derived.  It’s regarded as a more natural alternative to artificial sugar substitutes like Equal and Sweet-n-Low.  SEITR’s parent company, Cumberland Packing Corp, also owns Sugar in the Raw, a popular brand of unrefined sugar.  Presumably, the brand name was chosen based on the “Sugar in the Raw” convention.

On the back of the packet, I quickly noticed the domain name: SteviaExtractInTheRaw.com.  Even though this is simply the brand name appended with .COM, it’s a terrible domain name, mostly because it is so long.  Also, it’s very easy to overlook the word “Extract,” because it is in such a smaller font, tucked under “Stevia,” meaning consumers will be likely to forget to include it when typing the domain name and they might assume, like I did, that “Stevia” is the brand name.

Unfortunately, Stevia.com has already been taken by another company, Healthworld Online, Inc., an online resource for health and wellness information. The site heavily promotes another brand of stevia sweetener: SweetLeaf. 

Here’s a screenshot:

Luckily though, Cumberland Packing Corp also owns SteviaInTheRaw.com and points it to the main SEITR site.  This is a better domain name than SteviaExtractInTheRaw.com because it is shorter and because, based on the logo, it is more intuitive for consumers.  Additionally, it reinforces the ties to the sister brand, Sugar in the Raw.  I think brands should be conscious of these issues and focus on making it easier for consumers to access their content online.  One way SEITR could do this would be to promote SteviaInTheRaw.com as its primary domain name.  Another way the company could gain considerable competitive advantages is to acquire stevia.com and own the category online.