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

Prototypical answer:

State Bank of India (SBI) is the largest banking and financial services company in India by revenue, assets and market capitalization. It is a state-owned corporation with its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra (India). SBI is ranked # 292 globally in the Fortune Global 500 list in the year 2011. SBI and its thirty subsidiaries provide a wide range of financial products and services through its physical presence in more than 35 countries and through web presence such as its Corporate web site (www.sbi.co.in), Internet Banking and other transactional web sites.
SBI as an acronym has been in use since the time SBI came into existence in the year 1955. SBI being a short, easy to remember and easy to pronounce acronym is used very widely to refer to SBI and its group members.
Mission of .statebank
Currently, the web sites of SBI are registered under several existing TLDs like “.com”, “.in” and “.net” etc. The customer has to search and locate the various products⁄ services by navigating through all the web sites of SBI and its subsidiaries. Widespread possible naming conventions⁄ Cybersquatting in the existing TLDs may mislead any financial institutional customers to various phishing⁄ malicious web sites, leading to online fraud. SBI wants to have an exclusive ownership of a TLD, as it intends to have complete control on the second-level domain names to have “worldwide Uniform presence for the Brand SBI” and provide “Huge comfort level to customers”, web site by consolidating and simplifying their online identity.
Purpose of .statebank
SBI values the Internet as a strong medium to reach out to its customers. SBI believes that owning a TLD (.statebank) for brand purpose exclusively, can lead to the following benefits:
• Increased global brand visibility
• Efficient brand and domain name protection
• Deeper customer engagement and increased long-term brand loyalty
• Easy navigation for customers
• Enhanced security thereby increasing the customer’s confidence for online banking⁄ virtual banking
• Intuitive Internet navigation (product.statebank, service.statebank, campaign.statebank)
• Effective tool to avoid cybersquatting⁄ phishing related costs
• Reputation Management
• Search Engine Marketing⁄ Optimization cost reductions
• Greater level of control over Internet presence with regards to costs, intellectual property and technical control
• Enhancement of both internal and external communication as the chosen gTLD could become the focal point of SBI’s Internet presence for internal and external users
• Rationalize our online presence (including our portfolio of domains and trademarks) by existing online through our own gTLD domain name
• Reduction of Search Marketing Costs
• Ownership of a “Piece of the Internet” Representing the organization’s Identity and What We Do
• Increase in the value of the Company
• Own- brand online community building
• Complete control over second level registration and use
• New business models⁄ opportunities
• Social Media Optimization
• Simplification of online identity to mirror existing offline identity
• Minimization of Online Fraud
• Stronger marketing tool for creation of online campaigning
• Branded Top-Level Domains are like a warranty seal, thereby increasing the trust of the customer
• Minimal reduction of dependence on search engines in future

A 350+ million customer base accesses the web sites of SBI and its subsidiaries’ web site, either for managing their online banking accounts or accessing the information⁄ details about various products and services or for doing various transactions over payment gateways and so on.
Every year SBI spends USD 45,000,000 approximately on directing its audience to the correct web site, by the way of BTL (Below The Line) promotions through Newspapers⁄ Magazines, pamphlets, electronic medium (TV⁄ films etc.) and also by way of Exhibitions and Roadshows (Banners⁄ Holdings).
SBI plans to invest in this gTLD and acquire control over the .statebank string. For this project SBI has made an investment plan of around $400,000 over the next 3 years.
18 a, ii)
SBI will be using .statebank exclusively for its internal divisions and its subsidiaries. Currently, SBI has registered more than 150 domains in the “.com”, “.in”, “.net” and “.org” TLDs. Under these TLDs, SBI’s Corporate web site(www.sbi.co.in), domestic Internet Banking site, foreign Internet Banking sites, Enterprise e-mail service, SBI debit card payment gateway web site, web sites for products like prepaid card, cash management product, trade finance, Enterprise e-learning system, mobile banking, enterprise human resource management system, demat services, credit card and payment services, mutual fund services, capital markets service, general insurance service, life insurance service, global factors service, pension funds service, fund management service, custodial services and other banking subsidiaries in domestic and foreign purview. Also, additional domains are being registered each month to cater to the new products⁄ services being offered by SBI.
It is being estimated that in the first year after .statebank is allotted to SBI, around 25 second-level domains will be registered; in the second- year around 150 second-level domains will be live; in the third-year around 225 second-level domains will be live; in the fourth-year around 400 domains will be live and in the fifth-year around 600 second-level domains will be live.
In the first-year, priority will be provided to the existing domains of SBI. Combination of transactional and information web sites will be brought under the new gTLD of SBI. In the subsequent years, other existing domains and new domains of SBI and its subsidiaries will be also be brought under the new gTLD of SBI.
For instance, the existing Internet Banking web site of SBI is www.onlinesbi.com. The new second-level domain name of this web site would be www.onlinesbi.statebank. Similarly, all car loan-related content and details would be made available under www.carloan.statebank, the content of agriculture loans would be available under www.agriloan.statebank, details about deposit products of SBI would be available under www.deposit.statebank and details about debit cards would be available under www.atm.statebank etc. Similarly such second-level domains will be created under the new gTLD of SBI for the wide range of products and services of SBI and its subsidiaries. This would not only enable the customer-base of more than 350 million to navigate all our financial services easily, but also extend a higher-level of confidence and trust to the customer on the authenticity of the accessed web site.

Similar gTLD applications: (227)