Will you grow giant money-trees?

The application fee per name starts at US$185 000, and can cost up to US$500,000 to integrate. Still, this investment is no more than what large single highway signage costs over a 10-year lease. This one is more about thousands of such luminous cyber structures over high-density, information highways.

Create, nurture, grow

Once a unique idea with the right name identity has been decided, the challenge will be to create, nurture and grow it with a successful sub-name brand-hierarchy. This way, the master gTLD root takes to grow like a tree with strong branches and gets ready to blossom, with successful layers of multiple sub-name-brands into a giant money-tree.

When all you have is a hammer, everything will appears to be a nail. The gTLDs are not just about trademark filing and battle posturing or cyber-squatting but more of creating unusual global intellectual properties that offer multiple opportunities for rapid image expansion and, most importantly, achieving market domination via name identity.

The ICANN gTLDs are also not just about mass domain name registrations but rather creating massive customer acquisition and intricate layers of providing customer access.

Most of the current debate is focused on the grind of one of the single key aspects while ignoring all the other interlaced facets and, therefore, missing out the reflective shine and brilliance of the idea.

Interdisciplinary approach is a must

An interdisciplinary approach to all gTLD matters is a must, as with early cinema, which incorporated dozens of diverse and non-related issues; when combined, a full-fledged industry erupted. The integrated approach to gTLD is the fastest way to get the attention in the boardroom. Otherwise, it becomes a splintered discussion on separate floors, from technology and legal to domain name registration and webmasters.

If we place the entire gTLD process in a hierarchy forming a pyramid:

• the base would consist of all the big picture concepts and specific ideas
  
• the middle part is where all the procedures of application, funding, financial modelling and legally guided long-term application processes reside
  
• on the very pointed top of the pyramid will the proposed name with full consensus and analysis as, without its absolute winning surety, not only the entire exercise would simply be futile but the pyramid would also collapse.

All stakeholders need guidance and deeper understanding to play this global game of market domination via name identity, and senior executive must learn to tackle the unusual questions of today:

• How to make bold and intelligent arguments in the boardroom and ask for a million dollars to create a billion-dollar money-tree?
  
• How much real power a gTLD can yield on global name identity expansion?
  
• What special skills are needed to steer this new vehicle towards market domination?
  
• What should be the new game for marketing management on mass-customer-acquisition models based on a new type of naming architecture?
  
• What surprise challenges will cascade into marketing branding and trademark areas on global name identity issues?
  
• What are your options if your current name identity is incompatible with ICANN procedures?

The challenge will always be on how to articulate some of the following issues:

• How to assess practicality, profitability and competitive advantage and related options before the prescribed deadline?
  
• How to create billion-dollar domain-babies?

The latter is the bigger challenge. Once this game is properly understood, it certainly allows the creation of billion-dollar domain-babies, where superpower naming ideas become billion-dollar intellectual properties for their holders.

This will be an amazing game to play and equally to watch. The legal firms and image-branding agencies seeking new clients have three tasks: how to identify their top clients and offer them world-class recommendations with full confidence to play this game; how to create backup and supportive plans to capture special name identities for targeted markets; and how to attract new clients by providing leadership on exclusive options on generic and destination brands.

Key points

A gTLD under the right name identity combinations offers the following:

• The fastest way to create hyper visibility and global presence
  
• The most intricate device for attracting massive customer acquisition
• The game changer from the old school of traditional marketing and branding

A gTLD offers corporate management opportunities to energise marketing:

• Fast-track evaluations of current name portfolios to determine long-term action plans
  
• Realignment of naming architectures to accommodate too many or too few identities
  
• Reassessment of current name-ownership strategies in light of this new age frontier

A gTLD process has hidden naming challenges in the programme:

• How to differentiate power and evaluate a proposed name, eg, ,car .auto .motor?
  
• How to select a winning combination, eg, .locomoto, automoto, .udrive, idrive, .ucar/mycar?
  
• How to price and sub-brand naming architecture for a winning master candidate?

A gTLD race will create spectacular opportunity or a catastrophic failure:

• Any gTLD application without a highly appropriate proposed name will fail
  
• Any gTLD without a strategic branding and global image expansion model will fail
  
• Any gTLD without a wide usage sub-brand creation methodology will fail
  
• Any gTLD misrepresenting sub brands name evaluation will fail
  
• Any gTLD without commanding knowledge of global corporate nomenclature will fail