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

Prototypical answer:

MISSION AND PURPOSE:

Improved internet penetration and accessibility across the globe, is making businesses see the value of ensuring brand visibility online. An off-shoot of the increasing number of potential users on the internet is the online deals and coupons industry – leading customers to these brands. A recent Neilsen Report(^1) found that 48 % of online consumers around the world used coupons in order to save money.

Businesses both online & offline, from different industries are working their marketing strategies to attract online users to their products and service offerings and the discount⁄deals strategy is picking momentum. A 2011 report (^2) published by Forrester Consulting states that back in 2005, only 12% of US households used online coupons to avail of deals and discounts, while by 2011, that number had reached 22%. The total number of people using coupon sites in Europe in a month grew 162 percent to 34.9 million visitors in December 2010 when compared to the prior year (ComScore)(^3).

Valassis (^4) (NYSE: VCI), one of the leading media and marketing services companies in the US reported that shoppers in the US saved $3.7 billion through deals and discounts by using coupons in 2010, a 5.7% increase from 2009. While a large portion of these savings are still driven by offline free-standing inserts and in-store handouts, the company also reported a 37% increase in the number of digital coupon offers across the year. This clearly demonstrates the growing importance of the online deals and coupons market.

The mission of the .Deals gTLD is to give e-commerce businesses across the globe a unique web destination to house offers, deals and coupons that they’d like to showcase to their potential customers.

The last few years have seen many online deal sites such as Groupon, LivingSocial etc. gain popularity, with consumer spending on deal-a-day offers expected to reach $3.9 billion by 2015 (BIA⁄Kelsey Report)(^5). While these sites do a great job of aggregating coupons and deals across brands, as can be imagined, they have limited shelf-space and can only highlight a certain number of deals. Being dependent on these aggregator sites to showcase their offers, means businesses have to deal with high revenue shares, limited avenues and a constant fight to get the prime spot to attract enough eye-balls.

If users wanted to know about the deals on offer by a particular brand, imagine how easy it would be for them to directly go to Brandname. Deals and get all the information that they wanted, without needing to go through several sites or drill down through various links and sub-pages of a site before getting the best deal.

This ushers in the need for the .Deals TLD – making it easier for businesses to highlight their promotions and enabling customers to easily discover the offers that they’re interested in.

The .Deals gTLD will empower businesses in many ways:

* Increased Search Efficiency:

Marketers today spend a large portion of their marketing budgets on search engine optimization and users spend a lot of time looking for what they want, sifting through the results that show up in searches. Google Adwords data shows that there are over 16 million monthly searches (as of March, 2012) performed for phrases that include the word deals such as “hot deals”, “hotel deals”, “best car deals” etc. A key goal of the .Deals gTLD will be to empower consumers to easily find deals and discounts by simply locating a .Deals site and to enable businesses to successfully convert these searches into active business engagements.

* Increased visibility:

In every business stream today, you see specialization and distinctions being created. That is how you break through the clutter and our .Deals TLD is expected to do the same - give businesses a distinct web URL that makes the purpose of the internet destination evident at first glance itself, and at the same time stands out from the other generic strings available today.

* Reduced dependence on deals & coupon aggregator giants:

With their own branded, easily locatable URL, businesses will be able to reduce their dependence on the large coupon aggregators thereby eliminating the need for a revenue share and allowing them complete control over which promotions and offers they want to highlight on their own web URL.

Online deals and coupons as a marketing tool are expected to evolve in many ways in the near future. Our mission with the .Deals gTLD, is to give businesses a designated internet space that they can further develop and innovate with, in order to attract more business and engage with potential customers better. The Mission and purpose of our TLD is also to contribute to the Internet Namespace in the following ways:

1.1 ENHANCE REGISTRANT CHOICE

To create a namespace that provides registrants greater choice to represent themselves online in the manner they please. Due to the saturated nature of the existing gTLD space, many Internet users have to opt for a name that does not suit their needs best. Our Registry will provide Registrants a higher probability of obtaining their desired name.

1.2 CREATE A CLEANER INTERNET SPACE

To create a cleaner internet experience for end users by implementing pioneering registration policies, content and usage policies, and abuse mitigation processes.

1.3 CREATE A STABLE AND RESILIENT INTERNET SPACE

To deliver a stable and resilient internet experience to registrants and end-users by going above and beyond the ICANN mandated SLAs and delivering 100% resolution uptime.

References:

* (^1)
http:⁄⁄blog.nielsen.com⁄nielsenwire⁄consumer⁄global-consumers-go-sale-searching-and-coupon-clipping⁄

* (^2) http:⁄⁄www.webanalisten.nl⁄wp-content⁄uploads⁄2011⁄10⁄the-impact-of-online-coupons-and-promotional-codes-sep2011.pdf

* (^3) http:⁄⁄www.onlinemarketing-trends.com⁄2011⁄04⁄rise-of-e-coupons-in-europe.html

* (^4) http:⁄⁄phx.corporate-ir.net⁄phoenix.zhtml?c=119431&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1518098&highlight=

* (^5) http:⁄⁄www.prnewswire.com⁄news-releases⁄consumer-spending-on-deal-a-day-offers-likely-to-reach-39b-in-us-by-2015-according-to-biakelsey-117301243.html

This completes our response to Q18(a).

Similar gTLD applications: (0)