Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I attended a screening of Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night (a review at Licence to Roam); today, looking at the website I was struck by the major mistake they made in the websites.

They have a US .com and a UK .co.uk version, with the front page of the site different. Once you’re inside, it’s the same. The US site heavily promotes the 18+trailer on the from the from the front page (which means it probably contains male nudity and sex scenes), which is missing from the UK site. They’ve gone for the heavy handed method of demanding your details and cross-checking across the driver’s licence index before they allow you to watch it, which is completely discrimnatory. Especially as it’s available on YouTube and all you have to do is click to confirm age.

However, they’ve left the same age check on the inside of the UK site – so you can’t see the trailer via the official UK version without having a US driving licence. Which bad management by the site designers. If you are going to localise, make sure you localise throughout and not just on the splash page.