TM
“Preparing Businesses for the New Online Environment”
prepared by:
Edward Seaford
White Paper
(03) 9820 0466 | [email protected] | www.webip.com.au
We are only a matter of months away before we see the first batch of about 1000 new domain name spaces roll out. For all companies who did not apply for a TLD, the time is now to start planning. You need to first and foremost understand all brands in your category who did apply and determine the opportunities, threats and perhaps consider a competitor and partner analysis.
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It is important that your business is prepared for the
next generation of the internet by gathering information and planning for success. If you wait, you may lose the domain names
you want.
For Australian business that decided to not apply for the new TLD program, it is important that you stay engaged with this initiative and start planning for its impending roll-out.
“IT WILL STILL AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS WHETHER YOU HAVE OR HAVE NOT APPLIED FOR A NEW TLD!” We are only a matter of months away before we see the first batch of about 1000 new domain name spaces roll out. For all
companies who did not apply for a TLD, the time is now to start planning. You need to first and foremost understand all brands in your category who did apply and determine the opportunities, threats and perhaps consider a competitor and partner analysis. Web IP has attached a list of the new TLDs (Attachment A) that will be launched and have grouped them into easy to understand categories so that you can quickly identify the spaces relevant to your business.
The key areas Web IP recommends that your business consider are:
• Understand what your competitors are doing in this space? • Understand the risks to your business?
• Understand the opportunities for your business
Web IP has developed a set of questions that will guide your business through this analysis, broken down by competitor
analysis, risk analysis and opportunity analysis. It is recommended that your business include Marketing (opportunities / Competition), Legal (risk / competition) and IT (understanding of domains) in this analysis.
Web IP is also able to facilitate workshops to assist businesses manage this analysis and to develop a tailored strategic document.
1. Competitor Analysis
It is important to consider how your industry or business will be affected if a competitor wins a TLD that corresponds with your sector, product, service or brand?
For example if I am a business that has strong market capitalisation in the car insurance sector and my competitor has applied for (and won) .carinsurance, what will it mean for my business?
An article in the Washington post stated that bids by certain
companies to acquire new domain names such as “.book,” “.shop” and “.movie” has renewed fears among competitors that a powerful few will dominate the Internet marketplace of the future…
Consider these questions:
• Which of your competitors have applied for a new TLD?
• Do you know when your competitors will launch their new TLDs? • Have you thought about what they might do with it?
• Do you know how your clients may respond? • How could it affect SEO rankings?
• Could the TLD give them an online advantage?
2. Risk Analysis
It is highly likely that cyber squatters will revel in the new opportunities this program creates. So it is important the brand owners look to protect their core brands. Forbes Calls the new TLD’s “Rich New Territories For Cyber squatters”.
Cyber squatters will have an abundance of new domain names to acquire and will no longer need to pay for expensive domain names on the secondary market. It is likely that there will be an increase in trademark infringement as new spaces are released. So it is important to understand the risks to your business and develop a strategy to mitigate them.
From Web IP’s perspective there are three areas of risk to brands: 1. Cyber squatters who register brands through popular generic spaces, such as .buy, .shop, .store, .online.
2. Cyber squatters who register your brands through industry specific spaces and categories such as (yourbrand).cars if you are in the automotive industry, (yourbrand).food if you are in the FMCG sector).
3. Cyber squatters that attempt to abuse brands by registering in explicit spaces such as yourbrand.sex, yourbrand.porn etc. In light of these risks, consider the spaces that represent the greatest risk to your business / brands.
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For Australian business that decided to not apply for the new TLD program, it is important that you stay engaged with this initiative and start planning for its impending roll-out.
“IT WILL STILL AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS WHETHER YOU HAVE OR HAVE NOT APPLIED FOR A NEW TLD!” We are only a matter of months away before we see the first batch of about 1000 new domain name spaces roll out. For all
companies who did not apply for a TLD, the time is now to start planning. You need to first and foremost understand all brands in your category who did apply and determine the opportunities, threats and perhaps consider a competitor and partner analysis. Web IP has attached a list of the new TLDs (Attachment A) that will be launched and have grouped them into easy to understand categories so that you can quickly identify the spaces relevant to your business.
The key areas Web IP recommends that your business consider are:
• Understand what your competitors are doing in this space? • Understand the risks to your business?
• Understand the opportunities for your business
Web IP has developed a set of questions that will guide your business through this analysis, broken down by competitor
analysis, risk analysis and opportunity analysis. It is recommended that your business include Marketing (opportunities / Competition), Legal (risk / competition) and IT (understanding of domains) in this analysis.
Web IP is also able to facilitate workshops to assist businesses manage this analysis and to develop a tailored strategic document.
If Internet users embrace the new domains, the companies that control them could bear considerable influence on
Web traffic.
1. Competitor Analysis
It is important to consider how your industry or business will be affected if a competitor wins a TLD that corresponds with your sector, product, service or brand?
For example if I am a business that has strong market capitalisation in the car insurance sector and my competitor has applied for (and won) .carinsurance, what will it mean for my business?
An article in the Washington post stated that bids by certain
companies to acquire new domain names such as “.book,” “.shop” and “.movie” has renewed fears among competitors that a powerful few will dominate the Internet marketplace of the future…
Consider these questions:
• Which of your competitors have applied for a new TLD?
• Do you know when your competitors will launch their new TLDs? • Have you thought about what they might do with it?
• Do you know how your clients may respond? • How could it affect SEO rankings?
• Could the TLD give them an online advantage?
2. Risk Analysis
It is highly likely that cyber squatters will revel in the new opportunities this program creates. So it is important the brand owners look to protect their core brands. Forbes Calls the new TLD’s “Rich New Territories For Cyber squatters”.
Cyber squatters will have an abundance of new domain names to acquire and will no longer need to pay for expensive domain names on the secondary market. It is likely that there will be an increase in trademark infringement as new spaces are released. So it is important to understand the risks to your business and develop a strategy to mitigate them.
From Web IP’s perspective there are three areas of risk to brands: 1. Cyber squatters who register brands through popular generic spaces, such as .buy, .shop, .store, .online.
2. Cyber squatters who register your brands through industry specific spaces and categories such as (yourbrand).cars if you are in the automotive industry, (yourbrand).food if you are in the FMCG sector).
3. Cyber squatters that attempt to abuse brands by registering in explicit spaces such as yourbrand.sex, yourbrand.porn etc. In light of these risks, consider the spaces that represent the greatest risk to your business / brands.
For Australian business that decided to not apply for the new TLD program, it is important that you stay engaged with this initiative and start planning for its impending roll-out.
“IT WILL STILL AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS WHETHER YOU HAVE OR HAVE NOT APPLIED FOR A NEW TLD!” We are only a matter of months away before we see the first batch of about 1000 new domain name spaces roll out. For all
companies who did not apply for a TLD, the time is now to start planning. You need to first and foremost understand all brands in your category who did apply and determine the opportunities, threats and perhaps consider a competitor and partner analysis. Web IP has attached a list of the new TLDs (Attachment A) that will be launched and have grouped them into easy to understand categories so that you can quickly identify the spaces relevant to your business.
The key areas Web IP recommends that your business consider are:
• Understand what your competitors are doing in this space? • Understand the risks to your business?
• Understand the opportunities for your business
Web IP has developed a set of questions that will guide your business through this analysis, broken down by competitor
analysis, risk analysis and opportunity analysis. It is recommended that your business include Marketing (opportunities / Competition), Legal (risk / competition) and IT (understanding of domains) in this analysis.
Web IP is also able to facilitate workshops to assist businesses manage this analysis and to develop a tailored strategic document.
Questions to
Consider
What domain name spaces are most relevant to my business? What are our most
vulnerable brands (i.e brands with most brand equity)? How have we been
targeted by cyber squatters
in the past? What domain name spaces don’t we want our brands associated with?
1. Competitor Analysis
It is important to consider how your industry or business will be affected if a competitor wins a TLD that corresponds with your sector, product, service or brand?
For example if I am a business that has strong market capitalisation in the car insurance sector and my competitor has applied for (and won) .carinsurance, what will it mean for my business?
An article in the Washington post stated that bids by certain
companies to acquire new domain names such as “.book,” “.shop” and “.movie” has renewed fears among competitors that a powerful few will dominate the Internet marketplace of the future…
Consider these questions:
• Which of your competitors have applied for a new TLD?
• Do you know when your competitors will launch their new TLDs? • Have you thought about what they might do with it?
• Do you know how your clients may respond? • How could it affect SEO rankings?
• Could the TLD give them an online advantage?
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2. Risk Analysis
It is highly likely that cyber squatters will revel in the new opportunities this program creates. So it is important the brand owners look to protect their core brands. Forbes Calls the new TLD’s “Rich New Territories For Cyber squatters”.
Cyber squatters will have an abundance of new domain names to acquire and will no longer need to pay for expensive domain names on the secondary market. It is likely that there will be an increase in trademark infringement as new spaces are released. So it is important to understand the risks to your business and develop a strategy to mitigate them.
From Web IP’s perspective there are three areas of risk to brands: 1. Cyber squatters who register brands through popular generic spaces, such as .buy, .shop, .store, .online.
2. Cyber squatters who register your brands through industry specific spaces and categories such as (yourbrand).cars if you are in the automotive industry, (yourbrand).food if you are in the FMCG sector).
3. Cyber squatters that attempt to abuse brands by registering in explicit spaces such as yourbrand.sex, yourbrand.porn etc. In light of these risks, consider the spaces that represent the greatest risk to your business / brands.
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With over 1,000 new domain name spaces being launched the potential registration opportunities will be endless
3. Opportunity Analysis
Registration Opportunities: With over 1,000 new domain name spaces being launched the potential registration opportunities will be endless... simply put brand owners need to be sensible and develop a budget that they stick too. It is easy to get carried away registering new domain names. We recommend spending some time to identify the domain names spaces that can potentionally provide some form of marketing value or branding advantage, and focus on those first.
Generics:There will be some great opportunities to register new generic domain names. For example, imagine being a grocery business and owning food.shop or bread.buy etc, or if you are a real-estate agent and own find.realestate or (suburb).realestate. The marketing and SEO benefits could be significant. However, competition for these generics will be fierce so identifying the domain names that you are interested in early is an important first step. Once you have developed a ‘wish list’ the next step would be to monitor these domain name spaces to get an understanding of applicants launch plans, costings and their priority number to discern when they are likely to roll out.
Questions to
Consider
Are you a part of an industry body / affiliation that has applied for a TLD? (.eg: .cpa for accountant
etc.) Have they applied for a new TLD and what are the implications for your business? Have they announced their
intentions or any details?
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Brands: There will also be some good branding opportunities through the industry specific domain names such as (fmcg
brand).food, (automotive brand).car etc. Aligning your brand with a product or service that best fits your business will also provide some great marketing opportunities.
Partner Opportunities: It is likely that there will be partners, suppliers, industry bodies that have registered for a TLD that your business could benefit from, so it is important to understand which of your partners have applied for a new TLD, and what the new TLD is?
Developing a Strategic Approach
to the new TLD – Make a List :
Developing a new TLD Strategy includes a few basic steps: 1) Analyse the new TLDs (Attachment A) that may affect your business and make a list.
2) Outline the TLDs that are relevant to your business. Score the relevance from 1 to 10 and jot down a few notes explaining the relevance. .food .buy .porn .grocery 10 6 3 8
Very relevant to FMCG industry and business
Could be a good marketing space for promotions.
We don’t want our brands associated with this space. Consider a defensive registration?
relevant to FMCG industry and business
TLD Relevance Description Score
Remember, the more information you can gather, the stronger your strategic roadmap will be.
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The next step is to identify the successful applicants are?
Are they:
a. Competitors?
b. Commercial Registrars opening domain names up to the public (like the .com)?
c. Industry Bodies? Partners? Or Suppliers? d. Unknown third parties?
e. Non-related companies from different industries.
Once we have determined who the successful applicants are, we can start to build a more complete analysis including data such as the type of successful applicant (competitor, commercial registrar, industry body or a non-related business).
cyber squatters
Other elements to consider are:
- Whether the space is going to be Open, Restricted or Semi - Restricted;
- Applicants priority numbers to estimate the launch date; - Applicants launch plans etc
.food .buy .porn .grocery 10 6 3 8 CompanyABC CompanyXYZ Company123 Company456 Industry Body Commercial Registrar Non-Related Company Competitor Partner Opportunity Generic / Brand Opportunity Threat Threat Very relevant to FMCG
industry and business Could be a good marketing space for promotions. We don’t want our brands associated with this space. Consider a defensive registration?
relevant to FMCG industry and business
TLD Relevance Description Successful Type Opportunity / Score Applicant Threat
prudential, redumbrella, select, staefarm, swiftcover, thehartford, tiaa, travelers, travelersinsurance, travelguard, trv, vig, autoinsurance, carinsurance, lifeinsurance
Travel
apartments, booking, cab, cafe, caravan, club, clubmed, cruises, events, genting, holiday, hotels, hotel, hotels, map, open, passagers, pub, reise, show, taxi, tour, tours, travelchannel, travelers, vacations, viking, voyage, vuelos, webjet
Real Estate
apartments, build, builders, casa, condos, construction, contractors, estate, haus, home, homes, immo, immobilen, land, lease, loft, maison, mls, mortgage, properties, properties, property, realestate, realtor, realty, reit, rent, rentals, room, villas
Tech Brands
acer, android, apple, brother, canon, cisco, epson, ericsson, fujitsu, google, htc, lbm, java, kindle, live, microsoft, nec, nikon, nokia, office, olympus, oracle, panasonic, philips, pioneer, playstation, ricoh, sap, sharp, sony, tdk, toshiba, windows, xbox, xerox, xperia
Tech and Online Generics
app, camera, computer, cloud, data, dev, digital, download, domain, engineer, engineering, hosting, mail, network, online, search, secure, security, software, support, systems, tech, technology, web
Shopping /Buy
bargains, buy, cashbackbonus, cheap, coupon, coupons, deal, deals, discount, free, gift, gifts, gratis, kaufen, market, pay, promo, qpon, sale, save, shop, shopping, shopyourway, store
Luxury Brands
cartier, chanel, chloe, gucci, iwo, montblanc, omega, piaget, swatch, tiffany
Luxury Generics
diamonds, jewelry, luxury, spa, watch, watches, yachts
Faith
bible, catholic, cbn, church, faith, halal, islam, lds, Mormon
academy, bond, coach, college, courses, degree, education, ged, institute, latrobe, mba, monash, phd, prof, rmit, school, scholarships, schule, science, study, training, university Hotels hilton, hyatt, kerryhotels, marriott, orientexpress, shangrila, tradershotel Air Travel airbus, changiairport, delta, fly, flights, sas, swiss, virgin
gallery, fun, garden, guide, help, kid, kids, movie, music, new, now, one, party, photo, repair, science, services, shiksha, shoes, style, talk, tools, trade, vet, vip, vote
Gambling
bet, bingo, broke, casino, game, juegos, ladbrokes, lotto, play, poker, vegas, win, winners
Telcom Brands
airtel, docomo, etisalat, kpn, movistar, nokia, ntt, orange, qtel, stc, stcgroup, telefonica, terra, unicom
Telcom Generics
mobile, phone
Geo - Regional
(patagonia), africa, arab, alsace, aquitaine, bayern, catalonia, corsica, cymru, doha, frl, okinawa, persiangulf, nrw, ruhr, ryukyu, saarland, scot, tirol, vlaanderen, wales, yokohama
Sports - Brands
afl, mlb, nfl, nike, supersport
Food - Brands
cuisinella, kitchen, recipes, ferrero, kinder, mcdonalds, rocher, edeka, heinz, walmart
Sports - Generics
baseball, basketball, bike, cricket, dance, fan, fans, fish, fishing, fitness, football, futbol, games, golf, hockey, horse, racing, rodeo, rugby, run, ski, soccer, sport, sports, surf, team, tennis, yoga
Food - Generics
bar, beer, bio, cafe, cooking, coffee, diet, eat, farm, food, foodnetwork, grocery, halal, ketchup, kitchen, kosher, menu, organic, pizza, recipes, rest, restaurant, vin, vodka, wine cuisinella, kitchen, recipes
Health
beauty, cancerresearch, clinic, dental, dentist, diet, doctor, fit, fitness, hair, health, healthcare, hiv, hospital, med, medical, pharmacy, physio, rehab, skin, spa, stroke, surgery, vision
Parma
abbott, abbvie, alcon, bms, boehringer, (cialis), emerck, fresenius, hisamitsu, lilly, lundbeck, lupin, merck, merckmsd, mtpc, mtr, nadex, pfizer, sanofi, stada, teva
Media General
audio, band, beats, blockbuster, channel, film, media, mov, movie, press, radio, report, videos
Automotive Generic
cars, autoinsurance, autos, car, carinsurance, cars, dealer, moto, motorcycles, repair, tyres
Media Brands
abc, africamagic, arte, bbc, bloomberg, canalplus, cbn, cbs, comcast, cookingchannel,dish, dstv, dtv, dvr, eurovision, foodnetwork, fox, gallup, gdn, gotv, guardian, guardianmedia, hbo, imdb, mnet, multichoice, mzansimagic, netflix, nhk, observer, ollo, ott, qvc, sbs, showtime, sky, spiegel,
Automotive Brands
abarth, alfaromeo, audi, bentley, bmw, bugatti, buick, cadillac, chevrolet, chevy, chrysler, datsun, dodge, ferrari, fiat, ford, gmc, honda, hyundai, infinity, iveco, jaguar, jeep, kia, lamborghini, lancia, landrover, lexus, lincoln, man, maserati, mini, mitsubishi, mopar, newholland, nissan, ram, seat, srt, suzuki, tata, tatmotors, toyota, volkswagen, Volvo, aaa, adac, bosch, bridgestone, dunlop, firestone, goodyear, schaeffler
Geo - Cities
abudhabi, amsterdam, bar, barcelona, bayern, bcn,berlin, boston, brussels, budapest, capetown, cologne,dubai, durham, gent, hamburg, helsinki, ist, istanbul,joburg, koeln, kyoto, london, madrid, med, melbourne,miami, moscow, nagoya, nyc, okinawa, osaka, paris,quebec, rio, roma, stockholm, sydney, taipei, tokyo,vegas, zuerich
Finance Brands
allfinanz, allfinanzberater, allfinanzberatung, amex, amp, banamex, bbt, bofa, bradesco, capitalone, cfd, cimb, citic, creditunion, deloitte, discover, dvag, fidelity, forex, ice, intuit, ira, iselect, itau, jcb, kfh, lacaixa, lpfinancial, lpl, mutual, mutualfunds, mutuelle, olayan, olayangroup, pictet, pnc, pramerica, scor, shriram, temasek, transunion, vanguard, visa
Bank Brands
anz, barclaycard, barclays, bbva, bnl, bnpparibas, cba, chase, citi, commbank, creditcard, everbank, hdfc, hdfcbank, hsbc, icbc, jpmorgan, jpmorganchase, netbank, saxo, sbi, scb, statebank, ubank, ubs
Bank Generics
bank, banque, broker, cash, credit, creditcard, consulting, exchange, finance, financial, fund, gold, insurance, insure, investments, loan, loans, money, mortgage, spreadbetting, tax, trading, trust, versicherung
Adult
