The Brand Domains

An entirely new category of domain string is about to revolutionize the internet. Something like 680 of the world's biggest, wealthiest and most influential corporations are about to launch domains on their own well-known trademarks. Huge companies like General Electric, with its 300,000 employees, and marketing budget to match, are applying... And they aren't going to acquire these strings and then just sit on the fence.

Media companies like CBS, with a vast reach and influence amongst consumers. Tech companies like Apple with tens of millions of loyal customers. Huge companies like Toyota and Walmart with huge annual ad spends are dealing themselves in.

With reference to building awareness, huge companies like General Electric are saying they "will do whatever is necessary..." to ensure success (see below for more).

In Depth Report

For a very comprehensive report and analysis of the impending brand domains and their likely significance, visit our associated website TheBrandDomains.com. This site takes a detailed look at a large number of applications and includes hundreds of actual quotations from the companies' official applications. Collectively, these quotes and descriptions offer a unique and welcome glimpse into the intentions these corporations have for their exclusive dot brands. A picture begins to emerge of the possible internet revolution that will follow.

The Goal Of The Brand Domains

A broad aim of the dot brand registries will be to simplify the experience for customers. Companies like GE carry thousands of products. Soon they will be able to have a simple, trusted website for every product, like WashingMachine.gecompany. Each washing machine model can have a website. This will be considerably easier for the consumer than having to go to GE.com and wading through all the menus to find "washing machines".

That will likely be the broad model to follow for the dot brands — a simple, clear site for each product and service offered. There will be variants depending on the type of company, such as using words like "login", "information", "service", "warranties", "store locations", "bargains" and so on.

So you can expect to see intuitive domains like Login.barclays, Bargains.walmart, StoreLocations.mcdonalds and Service.toyota on the net. These domains will be the signatures signing off expensive advertising media.

The dot brands will be seeking to build private internets, enticing customers and visitors to their sites and to keep them glued to their proprietary pages for as long as possible. If someone is thinking about buying a camera, companies like Canon and Nikon will be building entertaining, informative (yet simple) sites to ensure they buy a Canon camera or a Nikon camera. For example, a loyal Canon customer will likely be able to intuitively navigate to EOS.canon.

Flow On Effect Away From The Dot Coms

A side effect of this tidal wave of dot brand strings will likely be a flow on effect that vastly increases awareness of other (non dot com) generic extensions, and encourage traffic to those sites... Not that the dot coms will go anywhere soon!

Hypothetical Use Of Dot Brands

Apple is a good example of an innovative company that also innovates in the domain space. So it's logical to anticipate domains like the following joining (not replacing) their flagship Apple.com domain:

iphone.apple

mac.apple

tv.apple

os.apple

itunes.apple

software.apple

computers.apple

stores.apple

login.apple

news.apple

launchpad.apple

future.apple

It is also possible that after searching for something like itunes on Apple.com, you will be re-directed to itunes.apple... But this discussion of Apple is just hypothesis.

A Quick Look At Some Case Studies of Dot Brand TLDs

It's unmistakeable that many companies will place a big focus of their attention and marketing budgets on their new domain options in the next few years. For example, General Electric, a company with around 300,000 employees, has revealed some of its intentions in its string application for .gecompany. It isn't hard to extrapolate further from those facts... Internal emails to those 300,000 employees... External emails to its suppliers and customers... Millions of emails — all enhancing the visibility of the new brand domain string.

GE makes the following statement in its application:

"...General Electric will use large portions of its marketing budget to speed up the process of customer recognition and adoption of .GECOMPANY. General Electric will do whatever is necessary to make sure that the public feels as if the .GECOMPANY gTLD is the place to go for consistent information about GE and all its brands, good, services, partners, and affiliates and that it will be the safest place they can go on the Internet to get such information."

General Electric. Application for .gecompany TLD.

Canon is an innovate company and their utilization of the new .canon string is likely to be influential. In fact, they believe that many other companies will take note and emulate the focus on shifting from the left of the dot over to the right by the early pioneers:

"The existence of this kind of differentiated TLD will encourage domain name registrants to consider the top-level as well as the second level when choosing an appropriate identity on the Internet."

Canon believes their new .canon identity will simplify their online presence, create a destination with the highest level of trust, and build a vehicle with increased promotional and branding power:

"...Positioning .canon as the official domain for the company, and unifying the company/brand’s web presence under .canon, would provide easy access and interaction, which the company believes would reduce confusion and improve user experience.

"Since .canon is a brand new TLD that directly represents the company/brand name, the Applicant expects it to be a highly effective marketing and branding tool. The Applicant believes that .canon will not only reinforce Canon Inc.’s brand on the Internet, but also attract people to visit the website because .canon domain names make it easier for Internet users to (gain) access to the information related to the company.

".canon is a 'company/brand TLD', which is a new type of TLD that is expected to have increased marketing and branding power. Registrants of .canon domain names will be pioneers in benefitting from the value of a 'company/brand TLD'. Also, all information sent or published from .canon will be official and that means the information is dependable..."

Canon. Application for .canon TLD.

Macy's is a good example of a large retail company which understands the new domain name paradigm:

"The .macys gTLD will facilitate greater trust and assurance from internet users connecting with Macy’s online, whilst still allowing convenient and efficient interaction.

"Given the restricted nature of .macys, it is anticipated that between 200 and 400 domain names will be registered in the first 3 years. However, the number of registrations is likely to increase as Macy’s develops and implements new services and marketing campaigns or create product and service related domain names.

"...Using the proposed .macys gTLD, Macy’s will be able to combine its use of the domain space with innovative user focused marketing and localised services to address the currently unmet needs in the existing domain name system providing greater consumer choice."

The companies with huge product inventories are the ones with an incentive to launch correspondingly huge numbers of dedicated websites.

Macy's. Application for .macys TLD.

To illustrate how different companies will use their new domain assets in different ways, YouTube provides a good example of a very unique deployment of their dot brand string .youtube:

"The sole purpose of the proposed gTLD, .youtube, is to host select YouTube channels’ digital content. The proposed gTLD will introduce a dedicated Internet space in which select YouTube channel providers can link to the content hosted on their respective YouTube page...

"Select YouTube content distributors will be able to register a branded .youtube domain (e.g., brand.youtube) which will be used to host short and simple URLs that point to the distributor’s YouTube page or specific offering. This mission will enhance consumer choice by providing new availability in the second-level domain space for distributors on YouTube, creating new layers of organization on the Internet, improving the YouTube user experience, and signaling that only select YouTube content is available in the domain."

That is an innovative contribution to the internet. YouTube will allow qualified members of the public to use .youtube websites. These sites will have a high level of trust, since they will be regulated by YouTube and only be purposed for genuine YouTube content.

YouTube. Application for .youtube TLD.

To read more application excerpts, Pool.com has created a great list of ICANN applications.

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