18(a) Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD

Prototypical answer:

Mission

dot BENTLEY will augment the Applicant’s commitment to Driving Luxury Performance, the brand’s essence.

In this new namespace, Internet traffic will be driven to sites that are a reflection of the brand and users will gain the full benefit of the Bentley experience, secure in the knowledge of its authentic, credible and reliable source. dot BENTLEY will be positioned, promoted and deployed as the single, dependable and trustworthy domain for Internet users to access information relating to the brand.


Applicant’s History

Bentley is the definitive British prestige motor car company, dedicated to developing and crafting the world’s most desirable high performance cars.

The Applicantʹs origins date back to 1919 when Mr. Walter Owen Bentley built Bentley Number One at a property in New Street Mews in London, England. The company rapidly became a byword for motor racing success (winning the Le Mans twenty four hour race six times between 1924 and 2003) and, following acquisition by Rolls-Royce in 1931, Bentley became synonymous with luxury motoring.

Between 1931 and 1998 the Applicant was known as ʹRolls Royce and Bentley Motor Carsʹ and following acquisition by Volkswagen AG in 1998 the Applicantʹs name reverted to Bentley Motors Limited. Thereafter, the Applicant commenced a £500 million investment programme to improve its factory facilities and support future product development programmes. It now employs approximately 4,000 staff worldwide and has a global retail network in excess of 175 dealerships including 52 in Europe and 38 in the USA. The Applicant registered the domain name bentleymotors.com on September 26, 1996 in the early days of the commercial Internet and bentleymotors.com has been the Applicantʹs online home on the Internet for over fifteen years.

Globally, the company sold just over 7,000 motor cars in 2011, a year-on-year growth of 37% from 2010.

More details of the Applicantʹs history with comprehensive information on the companyʹs activities in every decade from 1910-1919 to 2000-2009 are available on the Applicantʹs website at http:⁄⁄www.bentleymotors.com⁄distinguished_heritage⁄history⁄1910__1919.


Bentley - the brand

Many unmistakable characteristics define a Bentley - handcrafted luxury, distinctive design, breathtaking power and performance, a refined and exhilarating driving experience. Yet it is the combination of these characteristics that make the brand so unique. A Bentley is unmistakable - all it takes is a glance at the twin headlights, matrix grille or the high waistline to know one. The paradox is that although the car is instantly recognisable, it takes time and effort to hand-build each one using the finest quality natural materials.

Bentley has always been about passion. In fact, its entire reputation rests on the experienced skills and passion of its people, handed down through generations. Many say that they work on each Bentley as if it were going to be their car. It’s no wonder that every machinist who creates a set of upholstery signs the back with their initials.

Rather than focusing on typical marketing characteristics, Bentley seek to create the essence of the brand which speaks to several, diverse, audiences with one common voice. dot BENTLEY will enable the Applicant to communicate this essence to these various groups with that same singular voice in an online environment. This will be innovative, ground breaking and indicative of Bentley’s commitment to Driving Excellence by driving Internet traffic to its TLD.


Audiences - the community of interest surrounding dot BENTLEY

The present application is not for a Community-based Designation. The Applicant intends the TLD to represent its brand on the Internet. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the TLD will focus on Bentley’s communications with an online audience who are interested in the brand - which might be described as a ‘community of interest’. This group of interested parties is diverse and covers both internal and external stakeholders.

Internally, the audience for the new TLD includes the Applicant’s various business units and personnel. Externally, it covers third parties who are close to the brand, namely customers, suppliers, potential employees including those interested in the Applicant’s apprentice programme, the dealer network, franchisees and licensees; together with the media and the extensive group of Bentley enthusiasts including those interested in heritage and motorsport. Accordingly, where throughout this application the expression ‘community of interest’ is mentioned, it means this diverse group of Internet users who will ultimately engage with dot BENTLEY.


dot BENTLEY - a new online resource within the namespace

It is anticipated that post delegation, dot BENTLEY will be promoted as the single source for trusted on-line communication related to the Applicant, its range of products and other related information and resources. Internet users will be encouraged (via a range of marketing techniques) to recognise and only access information contained at dot BENTLEY as being the exclusive trustworthy source of data relating to the company and its automobiles.

The delegation of dot BENTLEY will negate the opportunity for confusion among Internet users as communication from the Applicant will educate them to appreciate that no other source can provide the levels of assurance of trust that will be found at this new TLD.

It is anticipated that immediately following delegation of dot BENTLEY, second level domains will be limited to modest numbers. For example, www.bentley and⁄or mulsanne.bentley. In this way, the Applicant will afford itself the opportunity to begin the process of educating Internet users to access data about the brand at this new TLD. The requirements for this task should not be underestimated; Internet users have long been accustomed to .com and the indigenous ccTLD for the country in which they are domiciled. Accordingly, the Applicant intends that the promotion of dot BENTLEY will be continuous and vigorous such that the Registry will achieve its promotional goals.

Traffic to the TLD will be continuously analysed to determine the number of users continuing to access the Applicant at bentleymotors.com and those that are migrating to the new platform over time. As the education process gathers momentum and traffic increases, Bentley would seek to deploy greater numbers of domains at the second level for example accessories.bentley, parts.bentley, service.bentley etc.

It is difficult to establish just how long it will take to migrate Internet users however it is anticipated that within a 24 month period there will be a sufficient shift in patterns of behaviour, warranting increases in the deployment of domains at the second level.

Looking further to the future, the Applicant anticipates that within 36 months of delegation all on-line communication will be accessed at dot BENTLEY and that vistors to the .com domains and other generic and country code TLDs will be redirected to the new TLD.

Throughout this process, the Applicant will conduct regular research among Internet users to quantify the effects of the education process and its effectiveness in establishing dot BENTLEY in the consciousness of the community of interest. This combination of traffic analysis and user feedback will provide useful data and intelligence as to the success of the new TLD post delegation.

It is also anticipated that dot BENTLEY will be deployed for a variety of Internet services besides the World Wide Web; specifically email for the dissemination of internal and external information.

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