Paper from Interbrand
http://www.interbrand.com/Libraries/Articles/Interbrand_dotbrand.sflb.ashx
What’s in a
Domain?
Generic top-level domains and
the new dotbrand frontierInterbrand | Pg. 2
What’s in a Domain?
Generic top-level domains and
the new dotbrand frontier
A generic top-level domain (gTLD)
refers to the suffix at the end of an IP
address, the .com, .net, .edu, .org and
other standard extensions at the heart
of the online experience.
However, on June 20, 2011, the board
of ICANN, the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers,
voted that any word in any language
may now be considered for use as
a gTLD.
ICANN’s ruling marks a fundamental change
in how the Internet is structured. On one
hand, it opens the door for companies,
individuals, governments, and causes to own
a piece of the internet landscape, a place
where their brand reigns supreme. On the
other, the user experience isn’t the same
as 15 years ago, and the domain extension
doesn’t play the starring role it once did.
Since the 1990s, a company’s online address
has been of critical importance, but for most
new brands, the dotcom is often already
owned. Now, for a fee of US $185,000, ICANN
is allowing anyone and everyone to apply for
their own dotanythingtheywant..
So the question is whether the dotbrand era
is upon us?
The answer is, no one knows yet.
One thing, however, is certain: a domain
alone does not create a brand. So, before
committing to owning a hefty chunk of
internet real estate, brand owners have to ask
themselves, What business am I in? How are
my products or services organized? How will
a dotbrand URL enhance my
online experience?
ICANN is promising the next great chapter
in the history of the internet, and while the
prospect of owning a unique domain is an
exciting one, the process, the benefits, and
the pitfalls demand serious consideration.
In the following paper, Interbrand explores
whether this new frontier is really everything
it has claimed to be, and then, most critically,
discusses what considerations a company
should take into account from a brand
perspective, a digital strategy perspective,
and a legal/trademark perspective.
In short, buying a gTLD is a tricky endeavor,
and for many brands, it could be a costly
mistake. Those who are likely to see ROI are
the focused brand builders whose entire
existence is online, brands with robust
digital strategies that have a clear, solid
reason to lay claim to their own piece of
the Internet.
Ultimately, to decide whether or not a
dotbrand is right thing to do, the answer is
all in the brand strategy.
Brand Types and gTLD
Strategies: An overview
In the following chart, we outline a few
general brand types and discuss which could
benefit from a gTLD strategy and those that
might not.
by Paola Norambuena, Jeff Mancini, and Jerome McDonnellWhat’s in a Domain? Generic Top-Level Domains and the New Dotbrand Frontier Interbrand | Pg. 3
Brands that purchase large numbers of URLs every year could
benefit by linking each back to the masterbrand.
Corporate brands with large portfolios of successful/iconic
product brands should think twice before investing in gTLDs.
Purchasing domain names for each product could become
prohibitively expensive, while using the masterbrand as a
domain could cause confusion.
Brands that might benefit from a gTLD strategy
Brands that might NOT benefit from a gTLD strategy
Brands with complex or reorganized structures could use a
gTLD strategy to align its offerings in the marketplace.
Brands with a modest online presence do not need to make
the significant investment that a gTLD demands.
For example, merging companies could rely on a gTLD to
project a single, cohesive brand.
For example, small agencies with a primary website and
possibly two or three secondary sites have little need for a
unique domain. A standard domain is even an advantage as
it makes the brand easy to locate and eliminates the need
to maintain infrastructure. With the costs of applying for,
establishing and maintaining a gTLD estimated in the millions
of dollars, a brand’s present Internet strategy should already
equal this investment.
For example, eBay with its large constituency of online sellers
could provide each with a personalized URL ending with a
.ebay suffix. This system would economize online addresses
while adding stature to the host brand.
Brands already leasing Internet “real estate” to individuals and
businesses can benefit greatly by investing in a gTLD strategy.
Organizations interested in owning whole categories can
also leverage the new domain system to their advantage.
For example, by purchasing a category domain registry, such as
.music, a brand can make pieces of this online territory available
to others with related offerings or interests, becoming a top-ofmind category destination in the process.
For example, Microsoft may wish to pursue xbox.microsoft
to draw attention to their innovative consumer products.
Companies with a fragmented master brand could purchase a
gTLD for its subbrands in order to drive equity back to parent.
For example, a film studio releasing multiple features could
provide unique URLs for each property while unifying them at
the same time through the domain name.
For example, a company like Proctor & Gamble could find it
difficult to purchase the gTLD for every product in its portfolio.
Additionally, as most consumers do not have a relationship
with P&G, a .pandg domain would add little to the product
experience. What’s in a Domain? Generic Top-Level Domains and the New Dotbrand Frontier Interbrand | Pg. 4
Dotbrand versus dotcom
The Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) quietly
wields a remarkable power over how
brands do business. Why? Because they are
the governing body in charge of top-level
domains—the coms, nets, orgs, and other
suffixes after the dot at the end of every
URL. With only 22 of these generic top-level
domains (gTLDs) currently available, it is not
an overstatement to say that ICANN is the
gatekeeper to the internet.
The .com gTLD is of course the most coveted
for searchability and general prestige. But
for a business to get the URL it wants,
it sometimes means wrestling it from
the web’s poachers and prospectors, at
considerable financial and logistical expense
Until now.
“Internet address names will be able to end
with almost any word in any language,
offering organizations around the world
the opportunity to market their brand,
products, community, or cause in new and
innovative ways,” as ICANN’s official press
release puts it. The expansion of the gTLD
system “will usher in a new Internet age,”
according to ICANN’s former Board Chair,
Peter Dengate Thrush.
The ICANN ruling has the potential to
unleash upon the marketplace innumerable
“dotbrands,” a domain extension that
replaces the standard “com” in a URL address
with a brand or company name . . . or
anything else an applicant may pursue.
For example, a company like Coca-Cola
could drop its current URL, cocacola.com,
and create a new address that is completed
with its name—for example, drink.cocacola.
What this means is that companies or
associations can now secure a URL address
that embeds the brand name even more
deeply into its composition.
Yesterday versus today
Fifteen years ago, at the beginning of the
world wide web phenomenon, there was
simply no precedent for what was happening.
While many companies rushed to stake out
territory in the form of domain names, others
adopted a wait-and-see approach under the
suspicion that the internet may be a fad or
a niche. The early adopters were rewarded
with prime internet real estate, but many of
the more cautious brands found themselves
up against cyber-squatters or businesses,
people, causes, and places with similar
names who had registered their URLs first .
At first glance, the ICANN ruling may
appear as if history will repeat itself, but the
circumstances are different this time around.
Perhaps most significantly is that in the mid-
1990s, no one knew anything about online
consumer behavior. Today, we know how
people navigate online and what they’re likely
to pay attention to in a URL.
Another big difference is that brand owners
can rest slightly easier knowing that,
unlike 15 years before, there are a number
of protections in place. These include an
objections-based process allowing trademark
owners to demonstrate how a proposed
gTLD would infringe on their legal rights,
and applicants must describe the rightsprotection mechanism they have in place
for second-level registrations. Additionally,
a trademark clearinghouse will provide
a centralized resource for storage and
authentication of trademark information.
Despite everything, brand owners will need
to remain vigilant once the application
process begins in January 2012, as they are
still responsible for policing their own marks.
Searching for answers
Many believe that Google, Bing, and other
top search engines will naturally award a
brand’s unique gTLD with a higher ranking,
that they will recognize dotbrands as the
official source of company information, and
therefore, position them at the top of search
results pages.
What has led others to doubt this
preference, however, is that Google has been
moving away from this practice in response
to spammers using brand names in their
domains to lure unsuspecting users to
their sites.
There hasn’t been any formal statement
on how search algorithms will be adjusted
to compensate for the new gTLD model.
Whatever the search engines’ approach, it
will have massive implications—not just for
businesses, but potentially for anyone with
an online presence.
In either case, one of the most important
factors in search ranking is the hyperlink.
Basically, the number of links to a website
from other sites or applications helps to
determine its place on the all-important
results page. This raises another key
question about how the search engines’ will
treat the new gTLDs: Will brands be erasing
years of inter-linking with other sites when
changing their domain identity?
Earlier in the year, Interbrand spoke with
Alexa, the global site ranking organization,
about the implications of the ICANN ruling.
Their feeling is that “creating a new domain
is like starting over,” whereas continuing to
build on a seasoned URL would leverage a
brand’s equity and rank.
For companies willing to undergo the effort
and the expense to implement a customized
domain registry, it will be critical to stay
aware of the search engines’ response to
ensure they don’t lose any equity in the
process. Assuming that the new domain is
accepted in the first place, simply switching
over in total at one time could be too
disruptive to a brand’s online eco-system,
and may require a period of transition or
a co-existence strategy, depending on the
circumstances. Of course, maintaining both
your current domains and a new gTLD will
mean additional layers of complexity and
expense that many brand owners may wish
to avoid.
One way or the other, there are a number
of variables at play in terms of the search
engines’ response, all of which will need to
“Creating a new
domain is like
starting over.”What’s in a Domain? Generic Top-Level Domains and the New Dotbrand Frontier Interbrand | Pg. 5
be carefully considered and solved for before
shifting to a dotbrand.
Old habits are hard to break
Over 15 years, Internet users have become
quite comfortable with the dotcom
construct—whether it’s a pure dotcom or
a country-code variation, like google.com.
au in Australia or google.de in Germany.
Dotcom is inextricably linked to how most
identify web addresses and shorthand for
doing pretty much anything online. And in
terms of strategic impact, the willingness of
users to give it up is perhaps the trickiest
to predict.
If this behavior has been at least a decade
in the making, how quickly will we see it
change? If there’s not a global transition—if
most brands don’t shift in the first wave—it
may be another decade or more before the
new domain construct is ingrained as a
behavior or as the default, as dotcom is now.
The majority of people still use search fields
to find a company, even if they have been
on the site before. And if it is a frequently
visited site, there is bookmarking or even
the dropdown history from the URL field
to get you there faster. Which means, on
the whole, that people are not committing
domain names to memory, but they can still
be thrown off when a construct goes against
the grain.
In the technology sector, there is precedent
for taking liberties with the traditional
domain structure, as seen in sites such as
instant.fm and instagr.am. Early adopters
may quickly embrace variations like these,
but for the average consumer, they can
be confusing.
In a recent example, when Yahoo took over
a popular bookmarking site that called
itself “del.icio.us,” it saw “a zillion different
confusions and misspellings,” such as
de.licio.us, del.icio.us.com, and del.licio.
us. Ultimately, Yahoo moved to the wildly
simplified delicious.com to make it “easier
for people to find the site and share it with
their friends.” With a new dotbrand, it seems
likely that many users will experience similar
confusion, at least at the outset, until they
become accustomed to the new structure.
There is a related discussion about the impact
of new gTLDs on email platforms. In addition
to concerns around behavioral adoption,
there could also be technical implications,
as many platforms such as Outlook and
Entourage filter spam based on the presence
of obscure domain names. To prevent
any disruption of inbound and outbound
email—particularly with marketing email
systems—it is crucial that these platforms
take steps to account for the new domain
registries, while continuing their anti-spam
efforts at the same time. Considering the
domain possibilities, this will not be a trivial
undertaking, lest they risk disturbing a
fundamental communication system for
businesses, governments, and
consumers alike.
Shorten and shorten again
For some time now, domains have been
undergoing another transformation, one
that is completely independent of ICANN:
they are becoming shorter.
Social media platforms often impose limits
on the length of users’ posts. Perhaps most
well-known is Twitter and its 140-character
restriction. With links to other content so
frequently exchanged, it’s become a necessity
to shorten the IP address, which can easily
be dozens of characters long, to make room
for everything you want to say. Twitter
even provides this service on its platform
through Bitly, a utility that takes a long URL
string and turns it into a bite-sized link. With
Google+ and Facebook implementing similar
newsfeed-style content as Twitter, short is
the new black when it comes to
sharing content.
For example, this URL from a recent Gawker
post, http://gawker.com/5827284/internetexplorer-iq-story-was-a-hoax
Became, gaw.kr/ojXOR4 when shortened by
Bitly.
So what happens when Bitly abbreviates a
brand name? Here are a few examples.
Vanity Fair – vnty.fr
Tech Crunch – tcrn.ch
Media Bistro – mbist.ro
And if you don’t want an automated
abbreviation, Bitly will even let you
customize the link, all for the low cost
of free.
But Bitly’s services go beyond shortened or
customized links. It also provides tracking
metrics for those links, giving brands
crucial information on how often users
are clicking through. Considering the Bitly
Enterprise package costs just less than US
$1000 a month, this could be an attractive
alternative to managing the infrastructure
that a domain registry demands.
In an environment where shortcuts are
easier and easier to come by, will a longer,
more complicated URL really catch on with
users? A gTLD means giving consumers more
information to remember. Perhaps all they
really need to know is how to click.
More than an address extension,
a brand extension
Besides search engines, consumer habits,
and technical implications, there is an even
more fundamental consideration to make
when considering buying a domain registry:
How will it benefit your brand?
From the beginning of the Internet, a brand’s
domain name has been seen as one of its
most critical assets. Conventional wisdom
says the stickier a name the better. But the
reality is if a brand experience— the look and
feel, tone of voice, customer service, product
quality—isn’t equally memorable, then it
doesn’t much matter how good a name is.
This is as true for dotcoms as it will be
for dotbrands. Simply owning a clever or
authoritative or adhesive domain registry
won’t mean a thing unless the brand
experience lives up to the hype. What’s in a Domain? Generic Top-Level Domains and the New Dotbrand Frontier Interbrand | Pg. 6
Keep it clear
If the brand is Coca-Cola, what should the
customized domain be? Should it be .cocacola, .cocacola or .coke,? Remember that
the non-refundable application fee—for
a single domain—is US $185,000. Plus,
with so many potential domain variations
for the public to consider, the chances for
confusion, and with it consumer revolt,
are significant.
People expect, and the most successful
brands provide, a seamless experience
from in store to online to the mailbox to
the smartphone. Suddenly changing to a
dotbrand, and all the URLs that come along
with it, could simply be too bothersome,
too perplexing to make it worth the effort,
increasing the chances that consumers
will either try to find you through a search
engine, which makes the domain name
a non-consideration, or move on to a
competitor who’s easier to find and access.
And of course, it’s important to remember
the relevance of social media. Many
customers will likely just look a brand up
on Facebook, bypassing the larger online
world altogether.
When you add up the easy access to
bookmarks, the near ubiquity of social
media, not to mention bookmarking,
anticipatory dropdown menus, and search
fields that require you to just type in the first
few letters of what you’re after, the entire
value of a domain comes into question.
Domain versus apps
With the rise of the smartphone and the
tablet, some are wondering if the icon has
the potential to eclipse the URL altogether,
as more and more people are using apps
instead of logging on every day
For most application developers, a URL
counterpart is still seen as a necessity, an
anchor of legitimacy, which has led many
to pay top dollar for the coveted generic yet
brandable domain name. The mobile photosharing service Color paid a reported US
$350,000 for color.com, but the site features
little more than links to buy the app and a
video demo.
Another smartphone innovation with the
potential to dilute the need for a URL even
further is the quick response (QR) code. These
cousins of the bar code only ask you take
their picture, and once you do, away you go
to get more information, make a purchase,
re-order a product and more. Marketers have
fallen in love with these simple devices, and
consumers are starting to feel the same.
Considering that consumer reliance on apps
and QR codes is only going to increase, the
question becomes whether the expense of
owning a gTLD is worth it. After all, when
the app store and an icon are the primary
touchpoints, why bother typing anything
into the URL field?
When dotbrand does make sense: URL
organization
Some brands, however, can clearly benefit
from owning their own domain. Take the
entertainment and consumer industries as
an example. Many often rely on unique URLs
to communicate a new campaign, property,
or movie. This gives them the status of a
stand-alone presence, but they almost
always tie back to the parent brand in
their content.
For example, Pepsi’s Refresh campaign uses
the URL refresheverything.com, which is
linked to and from pepsi.com. Although
there isn’t even a hint of Pepsi in the URL,
the parent brand maintains an unmistakable
presence on the campaign site and in the
context of the search description.
When companies have significant spend
on unique campaigns like this, using a
domain registry to bridge properties with
their source brands can be a real advantage.
The URL Refresheverything.pepsi is unique
and distinctive, but it shuttles equity to the
parent brand as the same time.
In another example, movie studios often use
unique URLs for new properties, sometimes
adding the word “movie” or including the
studio name to distinguish them. For
Harry Potter, Warner Bros. Studios opted
for harrypotter.warnerbros.com, which
defaults to movie-specific sites. Summit
Entertainment launched the latest in
the Twilight Saga under the URL www.
breakingdawn-themovie.com.
If Warner Bros. and Summit were to invest
in their own domain registries, however,
they could both establish a simplified
nomenclature for their online properties.
With a .wbs or .summit suffix, for example,
each film could have its own URL—
harrypotterandthedeathlyhallows.wb or
breakingdawn.summit—while fitting within
a clear, logical structure that emphasizes the
parent brand in the domain position.
These strategies avoid managing an endless
number of unrelated URLs and allow all
properties to have consistent yet still
unique names.
But the reality is if a brand experience—the
look and feel, tone of voice, customer service,
product quality—isn’t equally memorable, then
it doesn’t much matter how good a name is.What’s in a Domain? Generic Top-Level Domains and the New Dotbrand Frontier Interbrand | Pg. 7
There are limits though
Again, before a company starts writing
a check to ICANN, it needs to ask how
consumers interact with the brand. It’s also
important to look at portfolio management
and brand architecture, especially if they
own well-known product brands.
If you’re a company like P&G, where
consumers have a primary relationship with
your product brands, would a gTLD like
.pg or .pandg help? Or would consumers
be more inclined to use the product
brand to find what they want, such as
colorbleach.tide? In this case, the need
to register multiple gTLDs could become
overwhelming.
So how your portfolio is created and how
it’s used to help customers navigate your
products are critical factors in deciding
how—and if—new domains should be
bought.
And, it’s important to remember that
consumers are striving for simplicity in the
face of the information barrage they receive
daily, making them lean more heavily on
social media. Here, their networks will
curate content for them, and they can
simply click through from the Bitly link sent
by their friends, rather than keeping track
of the URL for every product that a brand
launches.
Sensing this shift, some companies, like
Vitamin Water, are leveraging their Facebook
pages more than their websites. Not only
does Facebook make it easier to connect
with consumers, it’s also easier to interact
with them, such as by posting on a person’s
wall or helping them create a playlist from
the unique content posted on the site.
And then there’s the benefit of internet
real estate
We see clear benefits for brands whose
business models are based on leasing online
real estate, like eBay, etsy, and Rakuten.
In a symbiotic relationship, members
share space with the larger, higher-profile
brand, and all the positive associations
that come with it, while still enjoying the
individuality that makes them unique in the
eyes of consumers. In these circumstances,
petespatios.ebay simply makes sense.
Other brands that may benefit from their
own domain registries are master brands that
may not be instantly linked by consumers
with their own successful product brands.
For example, Microsoft often does not get
sufficient credit for brands like xBox. A URL,
like xbox.microsoft, might help create a
better link. However, the business and brand
model behind the gTLD would need to match
the intent. Otherwise, it’s simply another link
we pick up from our search results.
Owning a category
Companies are not limited to their own
trademarks when applying for a gTLD.
Ambitious brands may file for generic
extensions like .music, .bank, or .football,
and if awarded the rights, they can literally
own their category. One example might be
an online music distributor who obtains the
.music extension. They could then license
URLs to bands, orchestras, venues, and
trade magazines, making it easy for users to
remember beatles.music, carnegiehall.music
or spin.music. The resulting community
could be an example of aggregating broad
content under a single domain that, over
time, could become the de facto destination
for all things music.
In another example, Blogger is a popular
blogging platform, as well as an occupation
for digitally savvy writers. Blogger could
potentially leverage .blogger as a valueadded benefit that encourages writers to
choose their service, while also retaining
their already loyal customers. For example,
the domain .blogger could become a badge
affixed to one’s own name or web address,
such as Jane.Smith.Blogger. This would
establish a personal brand for Jane Smith,
while shifting equity to the Blogger brand
and even the category as a whole.
Pursuing a dotcategory
Anyone can file for a category domain in
their application. The review process entails
a seven-month objection period where
interested parties can protest and/or file a
competing application.
Rights are determined by ICANN in
a decision based on 50 questions (23
general, 21 technical and operational,
and six financial), and the applicant’s
answers determine whether dispute
resolution is required. Disputes can
range widely and include concerns about
the similarities between applications,
trademark infringement, frivolous or abusive
intentions, or a pre-existing community.
If there is no way to determine rights, an
auction decides.
It is worth noting that dispute resolution
is part of the reason for the large
application fee.
Dotcharacter versus dotcom
Another impact of the ICANN ruling is that
English is no longer the default language
for gTLDs. In theory, any word from any
language, including Chinese characters
and Arabic script, may be used as a domain
suffix. One question this raises is whether a
brand will need to buy the equivalent of its
name when operating in foreign markets.
As far as China is concerned, there doesn’t
appear to be any need to rush. While the
vast majority of Chinese people know
very little English, if any at all, those who
use the Internet are quite accustomed to
the current gTLDs. As in so many other
regions, .com is generally considered the
indicator of a business’s official website,
while .org suggests a reliable and objective
organization.
For the most part, however, Chinese
internet users simply don’t pay as much
attention to a domain as their American or
European counterparts. Few experts are
predicting a large overall impact in China;
although some do believe that fraud will
inevitably rise as a result.
ICANN’s priorities
Yet another thing to keep in mind is that
ICANN is establishing a priority system that
gives preference to public entities filing for
community gTLDs, over consumer brands
filing for standard gTLDs when applying for
the same domain registry.What’s in a Domain? Generic Top-Level Domains and the New Dotbrand Frontier Interbrand | Pg. 8
For example, if the U.S. Apple Association
files for .apple, then Apple Inc. will have to
look elsewhere.
In another example, consider Apache.
According to the new regulations, if the
Apache tribe and the Apache software
company both file for .apache, the Apache
tribe would be awarded the registry first.
Because of these restrictions, it will be
essential to check carefully who else is filing,
lest you find your application derailed during
the seven-month-long objection phase and
incur a potentially significant loss in time
and money.
What about trademark protection?
As mentioned earlier, trademark owners
are protected by mechanisms built into the
application process. Applicants must show
how they have a rights protection protocol
in place for second-level registrations, and a
clearinghouse will provide a central storage
and authentication facility for trademark
information. Although brands must still
monitor their own marks, they can pursue
an objection-based process if they fear
infringement on their legal rights.
Additionally, recent provisions in the 350+
page gTLD Applicant Guidebook now afford
trademark owners even more protection
than previous editions allowed for. Now,
all new gTLD operators will be required to
offer brand owners two types of protection:
trademark claims and sunrise periods.
The trademark claims service is intended to
notify brand owners, whose marks are on
file with the clearinghouse, when a secondlevel domain name matching their mark is
applied for. The advantage here is that brand
owners may not need to defensively register
all their names across multiple new top-level
domains.
The sunrise period provides a priority
phase for trademark owners who want to
register during the launch of a new domain
extension, before open registration is
allowed. This means that brand owners can
secure their most important names, in case
a third party might attempt to do so.
What this adds up to for trademarks
Whether or not a company applies for a gTLD,
as a brand owner it will still need to monitor
applications for new extensions that match
its trademarks, plus applications that contain
generic or standard industry terms, as well
as competitors’ new gTLD applications.
Trademark owners will need to position
themselves so that they can, if necessary,
take action against the new gTLDs and
domain names that will likely be applied for
in the coming months (regardless of whether
they’re applying for new gTLDs or not). The
Legal Rights Objection process is in place
to assist owners when they believe a gTLD
infringes on their trademark.
While the final—or fine—details will likely not
be clear until the full process is underway,
trademark owners need to ask themselves if
owning and running a gTLD gives them the
desired level of brand control, or if the various
protection mechanisms ICANN has outlined
sufficiently meets their needs.
And of course, it’s important to factor in
the considerable costs involved, and the
possibility that consumers and online users
may not adopt, or adapt to, the new Internet
structure.
Opposition to gTLD expansion
Many brands and business organizations are
deeply opposed to the ICANN ruling. Their
concern is that the new domain system is
essentially forcing companies to apply—and
pay up—for something they already own,
their trademarks.
It’s unclear whether organized opposition
will force ICANN to reconsider, and the
issue is certainly worth keeping an eye on
the months leading up to the start of the
application process.
If you make the investment, make the
most of it
As we have seen, securing a gTLD is not an
inexpensive exercise. Initial application fees
run $185,000 with ongoing fees of $25,000 a
year for a minimum of 10 years. Additionally,
all applicants must prove to ICANN that they
have the infrastructure in place to manage
the domain registry and the financial
resources to fund it.
To simply get a domain up and running,
current estimates are ranging between
$1 and $2 million. Add to this the need to
maintain all currently held domains for
the extended period of time it will take for
consumers to become accustomed to the
new domain construct.
And it goes beyond monetary investment. It
also involves time and far-sighted decisions
on how to manage the domain, and how
it will benefit both brand and business
strategies.
So, it’s safe to say that if a brand doesn’t
already invest significantly in creating an
online destination experience, then securing
a gTLD simply will not be enough to capture
consumer attention and loyalty.
Without an already pronounced investment
in digital strategy, brands must be cautious
in their pursuit of a domain registry because
protection is simply not good enough of a
reason to warrant the time and effort, both
of which are potentially dramatic drains
on resources.
On the other hand, securing a new gTLD
could signal a significant change in how
brands approach their online experience as a
whole—so if a company does commit, they
should use it as an opportunity to maximize
their presence in this ever-more critical
communication channel.
Any questions?
More than a few, we imagine.
While the prospect of owning a domain is an
exciting one, the process, the benefits, and
the pitfalls demand serious consideration.
Understanding that you may have lingering
questions, we’ve attempted to anticipate a
few of them here.
1. What are gTLDs?
Generic Top-Level Domains are the suffixes
at the end of a URL. Currently, gTLDs are
limited to 22, including .com, .net, .org and
other familiar extensions. With the recent
ICANN ruling, it will be possible for anything What’s in a Domain? Generic Top-Level Domains and the New Dotbrand Frontier Interbrand | Pg. 9
to be used as a gTLD providing it is three
characters or longer. Two-letter TLDs are
reserved for country codes, such as .jp for
Japan or .uk for the United Kingdom.
2. How will ICANN choose to
allocate these?
ICANN has established a system that invites
companies and public entities to apply
for their own gTLD. Preference is given to
community filers over companies when both
apply for the same gTLD. A long, in-depth
application process has been developed, and
it will be the responsibility of the applicant
to meet all of ICANN’s requirements before it
will be awarded its own gTLD.
3. Is this imperative, or should I
wait and see?
It depends on a number of factors. Perhaps
most important is whether owning a unique
gTLD will clearly benefit your brand, your
business, and your online strategy. Simply
filing just to own a dotbrand, even if seen
as a protective measure, could be a waste
of valuable resources, especially since gTLD
owners must maintain the domain for at
least 10 years. ICANN expects all new gTLDs
to be operational; brand owners cannot
“reserve” or just secure the extension and
do nothing with it—at a minimum, a closed
registry will be required.
4. What does the application
process entail?
ICANN has put into a place a multi-phase
evaluation process that begins with a
200+ page application and includes an
administrative check, initial evaluation, and
a pre-delegation segment. The process can
take anywhere from nine to 20 months.
5. What are the estimated costs
associated with registering a gTLD?
The non-refundable application fee will
cost US $185,000, and ICANN will charge
a fee of US $25,000 a year over the course
of the 10-year license. With additional cost
considerations including establishing and
managing an infrastructure, maintaining
current domains over a transitional period
and associated legal fees, total cost
estimates range between US $1 and US $2
million just to get a gTLD operational.
6. When does the application process for
new gTLDs start and how long until the
public will see the new domains?
The application process will run from
January through April 2012. After April,
new applicants will have to wait until the
next window. By the end of 2012, the public
should see the first new domains in use.
7. If I don’t register a gTLD, how can I
ensure that someone else won’t take it?
This time it’s different. Trademark holders
are offered some protection by an objectionbased process, which allows them to
demonstrate that a proposed gTLD string
would infringe on their legal rights. However,
trademark owners are responsible for
monitoring new gTLD applications— ICANN
will not notify you of potential
trademark conflicts.
Further, applicants must show they have a
rights protection protocol in place for secondlevel registrations, and a clearinghouse will
provide a central storage and authentication
facility for trademark information.
Additionally, an objection-based process
will be in place to allow rights holders to
challenge possible infringements on their
legal rights.
8. Will owning a gTLD mean I can forget
about my current extensions (.com, .net,
.co.uk)?
No. It will be necessary to monitor all of your
presently used extensions for the foreseeable
future. And once your gTLD is in place, you
will likely need to continue to maintain
your current web presence until consumers
become accustomed to your new domain.
9. What happens after my application is
approved?
Once approved, you will be required to
conclude an agreement with ICANN and pass
technical pre-delegation tests.
10. I’m not convinced my brand needs to
rush to own a gTLD, so I’m going to wait
and see. Anything else I should
keep in mind?
You must be comfortable with the risk
of being locked out if another party
demonstrates its rights to an extension that
is the same or similar to yours. An oft-cited
example is .ups for United Parcel Service and
.ubs for the Swiss banking giant UBS. ■Creating and managing
brand value
TM
interbrand.com
Jerome McDonnell
Jerome is Group Trademark Director. He
manages Interbrand’s global portfolio of
trademarks and domain names, and leads the
New York office’s trademark practice, which
provides research and risk analysis on names,
taglines, and logos from creative groups
across our North American offices.
Paola Norambuena
Paola is the Executive Director of Verbal
Identity, North America, managing the
practice for naming, voice, messaging,
creative writing, and ideation.
Jeff Mancini
Jeff is Senior Director of Strategy, New York,
and, along with his team, drives the digital
practice at Interbrand. He heads the digital
task force in New York as well as a global
digital task force for the wider
Interbrand network.
