.brands Industry Report Everything you need to know about .brands

SEPTEMBER 2020 What is a .brand?

brand.com anything.brand

A .brand is a top-level domain (TLD) like .com or .co, but with your brand name to the right of the dot. It’s your own custom-branded digital ecosystem, where you have total control over the entire namespace.

Over 500 of the world’s largest brands now have their own piece of internet real estate. It’s time to end the search, and start connecting.

www.makeway.world

.brands Industry Report Contents 06 By The Numbers

10 How Sky Group is managing their global digital IP 16 Showcase: Highlights

18 Using your .brand in crisis - A COVID-19 analysis 22 A brand new home for GoDaddy Registry September 2020

Foreword

.brands Industry Report 05

Welcome to the .brands Industry The ‘By the Numbers’ section that Report for mid-2020, the first of our starts on Page 06 contains some of the publications as GoDaddy Registry. After most impressive statistics we’ve seen two proud decades as Registry, in our history of preparing this report, our team is excited to be joining the showing a continued momentum in GoDaddy family of companies. Rest .brands but a noticeable upswing in assured, as GoDaddy Registry we usage over the last 12 months. In this will continue to support the .brands publication, we’ll also explore industry industry and provide you with all the verticals to see how this impacts .brand latest news and insights as we have in usage around the world. the past. We will also continue to “walk the talk,” as our business will live on the Finally, COVID-19 is such an impactful shiny, new . brand TLD. topic for our world right now and our analysis on what this means for You can find our new at .brands can be found on Page 18. It’s www.registry.godaddy, which we great to see a number of household discuss on Page 22 of this report. The brands using their .brand for this type launch of .godaddy is exciting for all of controlled and specific messaging of us, and just as we did with .neustar, and these organizations have really we will document every step of the way embraced some of the core benefits of and share the journey with you. owning your own TLD.

In this report, we highlight one of On that note, we hope that you the largest media organizations in and your families are staying safe the world, The Sky Group. Sky fully as we collectively navigate the so understand the complexities of running called “new normal”. We’re all in a geographically dispersed and multi- this together, so please feel free dimensional business as much as to contact us should you need any anyone. On page 10 Tony Kirsch speaks assistance or even if you just want exclusively with Dawn Shackleton – to have a friendly chat. Head of Online Brand Protection at Sky on about what it means to manage To you and yours: stay safe and digital IP in the modern world, and healthy, and please enjoy this .brand how their use of .sky is helping them Industry Report. overcome a range of challenges. This is a must read for IP managers and TLD operators and helps to identify Jason Loyer strategies that help stimulate usage of Director, Client Services, your .brand TLD. GoDaddy Registry September 2020 By the numbers

Total resolving Domains used for Total domains domains the first time 19,920 3,535 26 up 16% up 21% new record

Average number of Number of TLDs with domains per TLD more than 50 domains 35 48 up 10% up20%

Stats correct as at June 30, 2020. Growth rates indicate change over twelve months from Jul 1, 2019 to Jun 30, 2020

Registered .brand domains

.dvag .audi .mma 1 3771 2 2030 3 1871 .allfinanz .seat .mini 4 1010 5 747 6 676 *Data - 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020 .brands Industry Report 07 Fastest growing .brand domains

.cbs 600%

.sbi 300% .BRANDS .vig 140%

.sew 100%

.itv 100%

.dhl 81%

0% % OF GROWTH OVER 12 MONTHS 600%

Most resolving .brand domains

1300

1000 1186 NUMBER OF DOMAINS

700

500 512

300

100 107 88 83 0 .audi .seat .schwarz .weber .bmw .BRANDS *Data - 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020 September 2020

Fastest growing .brand registrations by industry

6000

5000 NUMBER OF DOMAINS

4000

3000

2000

1000

0 DEC 2017 DEC 2018 DEC 2019 JUNE 2020 YEAR

Information Insurance Automotive Technology Industrial Banking and Financial

Top 5 resolving domains by industry

Banking & 1 Automotive 2 Financial 3 Retail Information 4 Industrial 5 Technology

*Data - 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020 .brands Industry Report Italy 282 Israel 09 Australia 324 Switzerland Russian Federation Russian 409 Brazil 34% 30% 430 China 23% UK 563 567 Australia COUNTRY 165% 636 Japan 80% 865 Spain 2562 France .brand domain registrations (%) .brand domain registrations 37% USA Countries with the fastest growth in fastest the with Countries 3591

8813 Germany Kuwait Austria India

Countries leading the way with .brand names domain with way the leading Countries NUMBER OF DOMAINS *Data - 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020 to 1 July 2019 - *Data September 2020

FEATURE ARTICLE How Sky Group is managing their global digital IP

Tony Kirsch Dawn Shackleton Head of Professional Services, Head of Online Brand Protection, GoDaddy Registry Sky Group Technology

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Sky Group is one of the world’s and facilitate the provision and and educating customers and staff of most diversified Direct-To- promotion of online compliance the latest phishing scams infringing Consumer media organizations policies and guidance. I am also on Sky’s brands is a never-ending and operates across numerous proud to be an active member task that my team work with cyber countries and business areas. and sit on the board of the Brand security to tackle the issues we Since their acquisition of the .sky Registry Group (BRG). face. We also work closely with TLD, Sky Group have consistently the IP lawyers to close sites, apps experimented with .sky and are Tony Kirsch: What does the Sky and social media accounts that are one of the foremost advocates of Group digital IP portfolio look like? infringing .brand utilization. on Sky’s “MY TEAM IS THE Dawn Shackleton: Sky has multiple trademarks CENTRAL DOMAIN In this exclusive interview, domain portfolios across the via a domain MANAGEMENT GoDaddy Registry’s Tony Kirsch different territories that it operates name. Another HUB FOR ALL SKY talks with Dawn Shackleton – Head out of. My team is the central big challenge TERRITORIES...” of Online Brand Management to domain management hub for all Sky is finding discuss all things digital IP, .brand territories, and we set the domain dotCOM and how .sky is slowly becoming name strategy and policies for the domains for new products and part of this giant organization’s whole of Sky Group. In the UK sky. services, as most skygenericword. future online footprint. com is used for customer facing com domains have been registered services. Whereas the ccTLD is used by domain prospectors if not already Tony Kirsch: Thanks for taking the for Rep of Ireland, Germany, Italy, owned by Sky. To purchase generic time to speak with us Dawn. To start, Austria, Spain and Switzerland. two-word domains is expensive and could you tell us a little about your The active domains and defensive challenging. Lastly having a generic background and your current role in domains reflect the trademarks, word for a brand makes defending terms of managing Sky’s digital IP? products and services available to it a rather large brand protection customers within each country. exercise on a global level and across Dawn Shackleton: Hello Tony, it’s multiple languages and cultures. absolutely my pleasure. I have Tony Kirsch: What are the 5 most worked for Sky in the UK for over 22 concerning challenges you’re facing Tony Kirsch: What strategies years in many guises. Currently today in terms of managing the (including .sky, but not specifically I am Head of Online Brand Protection domain portfolio for Sky? related to .sky) have you found and my team useful to implement to overcome works out of Sky’s “I HAVE WORKED Dawn Shackleton: TV and film these challenges? Group Technology FOR SKY IN THE content acquisition and license Office. My team’s UK FOR OVER 22 agreements with major studios Dawn Shackleton: Brand protection responsibilities YEARS IN MANY and sports organisations in the internet name space makes include managing GUISES.” around the world and it necessary to build collaborative Group Sky internet producing home grown content and strong working relationships name space (domains and dotSKY is incredibly expensive. Preventing with legal and security teams. At registry), provide DNS support for and shutting down content piracy Sky, Nisha Parkash in my team and technology and business teams, sites on the public and deep web is I are the domain specialists and manage the external PKI providers the top challenge for Sky. Preventing we treat domains as digital assets, September 2020

Dawn Shackleton: At most large companies’ people move on or change their roles and Sky is no different. This means that getting long term traction and awareness of dotSKY is a time consuming and often arduous task. It was especially hard during the build up to the Application process and until delegation. It’s not easy which they are. Technologists Tony Kirsch: Are these challenges trying to explain what a TLD is and love a strategy and over the last consistent with what you hear from why it’s different to a 2LD domain four years we have agreed with other brand owners? Or are there name. Sky has benefited from me still the legal, business, technology differences you see depending on being around to manage the dotSKY and product teams the Group Sky the types of organizations? registry. Plus, some of our legal folk Domain Management Strategy. For that took part in the feasibility study a large organisation it is essential Dawn Shackleton: In particular and the Application contract work to have a centralised and cohesive content piracy is the biggest are still at Sky. Luckily, they remain domain management strategy and headache for TV and film companies engaged with the registry and domain promote awareness of the policies as it is global and in the main management. This has meant that to all areas of the business. Some associated with organised crime. the TLD wasn’t forgotten about and of our domain policies include not Phishing scams are a nightmare mothballed. By including the TLD in looking up availability of a domain for all commercial enterprises no all domain requirement discussions name outside of my team, avoid matter what size of organisation around the company we were able the use of hyphens, not registering you are. Your relationship with your to promote dotSKY as an alternative typo domains (where does it end?), customers can easily be tarnished if source of domain names. By being we don’t allow the use of other you don’t proactively try and close- consistent with our brand trademarks and we even have down the scams or at least inform messages since delegation we have policies to cover sub domains (3LDs) your customers to be on the lookout built up a top to bottom awareness and DNS domain delegations. We for them. It costs many millions to of dotSKY. People now come to us also utilise a report build and market a reputable asking for a dotSKY domain name, we receive from “PEOPLE NOW brand and yet for a few bucks so the consistency and perseverance one of our domain COME TO US ASKING a criminal using a similar has paid off. Mind you to begin management FOR A DOTSKY domain name (often using a with we had to be cautious about suppliers that flags DOMAIN NAME, SO hyphened or typo domain) can drumming up too many requests for domain registrations THE CONSISTENCY destroy a brands reputation. dotSKY domains because of having a containing the AND PERSEVERANCE restricted number of domains that we words ‘sky’ and HAS PAID OFF.” Tony Kirsch: What have been were able to register. After a successful ‘now’ (NowTV is a no contract OTT some of the challenges that you’ve renegotiation of the backend box and service). This enables Sky’s experienced in terms of building agreement with our provider we now security teams to watch for any awareness and excitement to use have a substantial increase in the infringing activity on those domains. .sky internally? number of domains we can register. A win, win situation for all concerned.

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Tony Kirsch: What about any Tony Kirsch: What have you found For example: challenges related to being a media useful in terms of successful organization with multiple divisions, education tactics? • Skygroup.sky – corporate and multiple geographical locations? https://www.skygroup.sky/ Dawn Shackleton: One of my team’s • Productionservices.sky - https:// Dawn Shackleton: Group Sky is responsibilities is to facilitate the productionservices.sky/ an international organisation and provision of online compliance Analytics.sky – a standalone has multiple trademarks in several guidance. If relevant to the project • portal for advertisers to languages with different trade being discussed the conversation access their campaign data mark levels registered within many about domain name requirements https://analytics.sky/Account/ different countries. The challenges can be kicked off. These guidance SignIn?ReturnUrl=%2f#/ for a media organisation are that meetings are a by-product of the your brand tends to be more widely Application feasibility study as the • At.sky – seemingly an internal known. Especially when you have constant message I was hearing SSO portal or similar popular content from Sky Sports from participants of the study was; • @example.contact.sky (UK, Italian and German soccer, F1 “Is there a central place I can go email services and cricket), Sky News (federation to for information about domains of ‘real’ global news stories from and other online compliance Dawn Shackleton: I am proud of all renowned and award-winning requirements”. My team and I also the above examples. The main game journalists) and our entertainment take any other opportunity that changer was the migration of the channels (original productions such arises to talk to people about dotSKY corporate (not consumer) website as the highly acclaimed and award- and our domain management from sky.com to skygroup.sky and winning Chernobyl). People want strategy and sometimes we just this is where we provide our nic.sky your content and sadly they want it make the opportunities. site. There was a slight drop in user to be cheap/free and therefore more traffic at the start of the new site but willing to try pirate streaming or Tony Kirsch: We’ve seen .sky in use within 3 months of launching the new VOD services that criminals can fire across a range of business activities site there was a steady increment up so easily. To have infringing sites to date, what are the top 5 cases that of traffic and after 6 months the taken down is time consuming and if you’re most proud of and what have traffic was above the old site. Sky you must you have to eventually go they achieved for the business? corporate communications team through UDRP, which is expensive. have subsequently decided to only use a dotSKY domain for corporate September 2020

sites and messaging. I think the it was a problem funkiest site using a dotSKY domain to get traction but is the Sky Production Services one. not now. There It is a great showcase of the Sky UK was concern that production facilities and its talented migrating from say resources that are available for sky.com would lose hire. Another huge benefit for our traffic but the new Enterprise Tech team is @example. corporate website contact.sky email proxies. It allows has shown that with Sky to farm out bulk email marketing careful planning and promotional messages to and collaborative customers via authorised 3rd party working between agencies, safe in the knowledge that the business and dotSKY domains when content customers will see an email address technology teams it is possible to production starts at the studios. that screams that it is from Sky. Also quickly meet previous traffic levels proud of the dotSKY domains that and improve on them. People are Tony Kirsch: Have you explored will never be seen by the general coming to us asking if they can have HSTS or other technologies such as public. Several of our enterprise a dotSKY domain for their project. DMARC for email using .sky? technology teams are using dotSKY Provided the use of the dotSKY domains for large infrastructure domain falls within our domain Dawn Shackleton: We already use platforms including a data centre. management strategy then most of DMARC and DKIM for email services. Tony Kirsch: You’ve employed the the time we can fulfill their request. It is embedded as policy to do so. I use of a number of redirects with the personally feel many organisations .sky TLD. Where do you normally use Tony Kirsch: What are the areas should change their view of domains them externally facing to customers? you see .sky being most useful for and see them as a piece of technology moving forward? not just as an extension of trademarks. Dawn Shackleton: The dotSKY After all, without the domain name redirects point to the main customer Dawn Shackleton: Looking forward you have no internet presence. A sites for the UK, sky.com and a few I see dotSKY starting to be used for domain name is a digital reflection of point to the main customer sites for more customer focused projects. your trade mark and brand. Equally I Germany and Italy. The most popular This is because it is becoming don’t think it is fair to expect lawyers of the redirected domains in terms of more difficult and expensive to or marketeers to make the right organic traffic is news.sky. The SEO obtain .com and .ccTLD domains technical choices for a domain name team are more than happy to obtain starting with the word ‘sky’. I am and certainly not about the record this low-level traffic. Any traffic is always thinking about what the requirements for zone files and name good traffic. future looks like for dotSKY and servers. The look of fear you see love doing the blue sky thinking. in their eyes when you start talking Tony Kirsch: Have you For example, Sky will be building about what A records and CNAME experienced any challenges in a new studio production complex delegations are required. Well you launching .sky projects? that recently receive local council know they are seconds away from planning permission in Elstree, fleeing from you. Dawn Shackleton: In the early days UK. I see a big opportunity to use

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Tony Kirsch: You’ve been a longtime in all industries are being bought Tony Kirsch: Have you seen examples public supporter of .sky and .brands and sold, rebranding or go out of from other organizations that you think in general Dawn, what excites you business. Indeed, many brands demonstrate great leadership? about .brands and their role in the are perfectly happy to not actively digital ecosystem? use their TLD, as in their eyes they Dawn Shackleton: KPMG shifting have the best defense of their their online estate to their TLD is Dawn Shackleton: I love my work brand in the internet name space admirable and a great example at Sky and enormously proud of the and really do not care what the to all brands of what great usage big strides forward that have been domain industry thinks. I get this of a brand TLD looks like. I would made with dotSKY in the last 2/3 point of view, but it’s much more highly recommend listening to the years. I still get enormously excited fun to use the brand TLD, even for Brand Registry Group webinar with about requests for domain names basic redirects. I think ICANN made Domenic Torani at KPMG that can be in the registry. The flip side in many a bold and innovative decision to found on the BRG website. respects is my frustration that I allow brands to own a TLD. It is don’t think the domain industry, important to acknowledge that Tony Kirsch: What do you see the or the ICANN communities get rebranding and migrating huge role of .brands being over the next brand TLDs in their purest form. commercial consumer platforms 5-10 years? Brand registries operate in a to another domain is massively totally different dimension to the expensive and requires extensive Dawn Shackleton: The internet is domain industry. Unfortunately, and careful planning on many now primarily a vast commercial you still see the success of .brands business fronts. For example, platform and the domain industry being measured by the number of Sky’s corporate site migration to should move with the times domains registered. This is a false skygroup.sky, which is small in and realise that it is no longer take on the success of a brand comparison to a typical consumer their sandbox. Commercial and registry. Brands are not in the site, took 20 months to complete. It Technology enterprises of all sizes business of profiting from domain was worth the investment and other have their brand hook, upon which name registrations and certainly brands should follow suit when the products, services and reputations they are not in competition with time is right for them, their brand, dangle. No business can survive other nTLD registries. You know products and customers. As the successfully without a presence on when you read about a brand internet becomes more populated the internet. TLDs for the big brands dropping its TLD that there are by commercial enterprises large, will eventually become the must some stalwarts in the small and in-between, have. Potentially some brands that industry out there I am sure that other have decided to drop their TLD may “A DOMAIN NAME wringing their hands brands and especially in the future regret doing so. We IS A DIGITAL in glee and saying, “I those that have only ever shall see. Bring on the next gTLD REFLECTION OF told you so, brand TLDs been online enterprises, Application round. YOUR TRADE MARK don’t work”. Frankly I will be participating in AND BRAND.” am surprised that there the next application Tony Kirsch: Couldn’t have said it have been so few brand round for their TLD. any better myself, thanks Dawn! TLDs that have been discarded Provided the price of investing is to date. Commercial enterprises sensible and right for them. AUGUSTShowcase:Highlights 2020 A selection of the best .brand usage around the world

bank.sbi service.bentley kinderraad.shell

India’s state bank drops the Classy domain to get your classy Shell’s Dutch Kinder Council gets legacy domain and goes all in on Bentley serviced. Perfect! a new website and .brand domain. the .brand.

create.hsbc openlab.cern honeycode.aws

International leading bank CERN shares it’s research Amazon launches their new app publishing it’s own brand community hub with the world. creation tools on this awesome hub to the world. looking site.

applecard.apple frankfurt.mini learn.sap

Apple launches it’s credit card Brilliant website that showcases Global technology leader creates with a cool .apple redirect. Mini’s Frankfurt dealership. new domain for all of their educational tools.

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idtheft.aig techtalent.ipiranga my.sandvik

Insurance giant creates a new Brazilian technology firm uses Swedish industrial giant creates site to help users understand .brand to find the next entire new customer portal on how to protect their identity. generation of talent. their .brand TLD.

baseball.fox labs.sas chromeenterprise.

Fox Sports now creating memorable A new innovation portal The popular browser launches domains to help customers find the developed by the Swedish Airline. it’s business offering on .google. content they want.

sustainability.clubmed rise.barclays diventafornitore.gucci

The holiday organization’s The UK bank’s online innovation The Italian luxury good brand goes commitment to a sustainable future. portal for customers and partners. big launching their new range. September 2020

Using your .brand in crisis A COVID-19 analysis

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We’ve often talked about how .brand top-level domains create safe namespaces and an opportunity for their owners to establish a trusted home on the web.

And whilst this results in a range of benefits such as eliminating squatting or concerns about Tony Kirsch expensive domain acquisitions in the aftermarket, Head of Professional Services, the COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted the GoDaddy Registry benefits of speedy to support crisis communications.

Crisis communications can occur for a variety of reasons across large organizations, including responding to topical important news, customer feedback or product/service related issues.

The COVID-19 crisis is one of the most devastating situations that has faced the global economy in modern times, and many large organizations have found the need to produce digital content to support their business needs and provide information to their customers and clients.

The use of a .brand to achieve this can be highly advantageous for a number of reasons – let’s take a look at just a few. September 2020

1. Domain With relatively low domain squatters buy pricing available on most all the names popular extensions these immediately days and plenty of options to choose from, buying multiple variants of domains that relate to a 2. Many names As reported recently in topic is a low cost investment. As you’d expect, are often used a Trend Micro article1, the vast majority of these are in .com but there the use of COVID-19 or are also plenty of domains that have been for scams similar domain names registered in ccTLDs and other gTLD extensions which harm have been used many – both traditional and new TLDs. consumer trust times already by malicious actors. Whilst it can be hard to picture why this How many you might ask? would occur at such a scale, imagine for a moment According to some industry sources, there are the number of people seeking to profit from this almost 100,000 names that have been registered virus in an illegitimate way – including those with in 2020 that relate to the COVID-19 pandemic. fake information, selling untested vaccinations and As you’d imagine, these often have the keywords seeking donations for non-existent organizations ‘corona’, ‘virus’ and ‘covid’ within them. To to name just a few. be clear, many of these names will be used for legitimate purposes so we’re not suggesting that Consumers are becoming increasingly wary of this is only the realm of bad actors on the web. these types of domains and it’s reasonable to However, if you’re even a few minutes slow on expect that trust levels from many within the grabbing that campaign domain that you want, online community with these types of you can rest assured that the domain name you is not high. Nonetheless, education on online want will be taken and you’re either searching behavior is not consistent across the world and for a domain that’s close to what you wanted or plenty of opportunity for illegal and immoral entering the aftermarket to buy at a higher price activity that harms the consumer exists, especially if it’s even available. in times of panic and increased research.

coronavirus.google

Google are no stranger to using their .brand TLD 3. These scams Further information from for important social purposes and coronavirus. often cause the Trend Micro article1 google is no exception. This .brand redirects deeper issues claims that COVID-19 through to the Google COVID-19 information hub domains are regularly – almost Wikipedia like in terms of its unbiased being used to inject malware into local machines and succinct information presentation on causes, and causing permanent security breaches. We’re symptoms and prevention tips. talking here about attacking internal networks, rendering local machines inaccessible and potentially hacking sensitive data from businesses and individuals.

Sure…this can happen at any time and isn’t specifically related to COVID-19. However, history is a good indicator of future activity when it comes to understanding how bad actors get the attention of the vulnerable using topical and seemingly legitimate domain names.

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coronavirus.fox 4. Crisis creates Many of our large clients The domain coronavirusnow.fox and coronavirus.fox new levels of have reported a need to have both been created to forward through to Fox exposure for register substantial volumes News’ statistical and news portal which is housed at brand owners of domains to protect coronavirusnow.com. This site is being promoted their brand in relation to heavily through the media cycles and would be COVID-19, causing additional expense and headache. experiencing substantial volumes of traffic as a Organizations that are involved in finance, technology result of the large amount of public interest. and pharmaceutical are particularly impacted as they need to suddenly ensure that squatters do not register names that contain both their brand and anything related to COVID-19.

Even organizations such as Facebook which are under increasing regulatory pressure to ensure legitimate content publishing were forced to register over 500 COVID-19 related names such as facebook- coronavirus-info.com according to Domain Name Wire. Sound ridiculous? Perhaps so. But as any brand manager will tell you having experienced this for years, preventing rather than legally challenging is always the preferable option.

coronavirus.abbott coronavirus.dhl

Few organizations have such a crucial role to play We all know that increased time at home and in beating the Corona Virus due to their extensive social distancing equates to a higher than usual range of testing facilities. Abbott have used this reliance on logistics and delivery and German domain as a redirect through to their abbott.com owned, global distribution organization DHL is site but the content itself is brilliant at outlining no exception. With millions of customers and information about the disease and what Abbott is employees all over the world, this information doing to assist with testing and research. portal outlines DHL’s commitment to its stakeholders throughout this crisis.

1 Trend Micro article ‘Developing Story: COVID-19 Used in Malicious Campaigns’ published March 06, 2020 (https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/au/security/news/cybercrime-and- digital-threats/coronavirus-used-in-spam-malware-file-names-and-malicious-domains)” September 2020

SPOTLIGHT SERIES registry.godaddy A .brand new home for GoDaddy’s Registry business

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The .brands Spotlight As we have seen with many other time, in particular for businesses Series takes a deep-dive .brand activations in the past, one with a heavy online brand into interesting facets of highly effective strategy for using a recognition that is reliant on their the .brands space, looking .brand can be to enable new parts .com or similar identity. GoDaddy’s at Stats Hub data to find of a business, product or specific acquisition of Neustar’s registry messaging to be created without business, and the launch of the insights about how .brands interfering with the predominant new GoDaddy Registry brand are being used across website and digital brand identity. provided a perfect opportunity different industries, regions Organizations such as Google for .godaddy to be utilized and and organizations. This have followed this methodology it’s highly likely that more such Spotlight piece focuses in with key product/communication opportunities will come along once on GoDaddy’s first use of launches existing on .google (i.e. the simplicity of using the .brand its .brand TLD following registry.google), without impact becomes apparent to internal the acquisition of Neustar’s to the historical google.com brand and external stakeholders and Registry Services business. which remains unchanged for the the .brand industry continues to core business. become more mainstream.

The launch of registry.godaddy An initial analysis reveals a similar, represents the utilization of a very yet distinct branding strategy for similar strategy for GoDaddy GoDaddy Registry compared Inc. In this case, the popular to the core GoDaddy brand and godaddy.com website and brand the registry.godaddy domain is a identity will remain unchanged for standalone URL that doesn’t redirect GoDaddy’s millions of domain, back to the godaddy.com website. email and website customers The site is simple and clean, initially around the world. At the same introducing the new GoDaddy time, the registry.godaddy website Registry business and providing has been created specifically for access to the key business streams our top-level domain registry including compliance, registry business that supports over services, advisory services and a 200 of the world’s most range of information specific to the recognizable TLDs including .brand industry. .co, .biz, .nyc and over 130 .brands. Is this the start of further .godaddy usage in the future? Only time It is indeed notable that this is will tell​. For now, this is a great ​ the first domain registered under example of a .brand ​TLD helping .godaddy despite the TLD being an organization to ​operate two ​ delegated to the root zone of distinctly separate businesses with the internet in 2016. Like many separate online brand identities. organizations, finding the right time to launch a .brand can take September 2020

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.brands Industry Report 25 GoDaddy Registry is one of the world’s largest and leading providers. We operate top-level domains (TLDs) on behalf of sovereign nations, city governments, global brands and domain registries. With more than two decades of industry leadership to draw on, we serve as the Registry Operator for industry-leading TLDs, like .co, .us, .biz, and .nyc – and manage the backend technology for hundreds more.

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