TV and CC Customer and Registrar Survey Results
Overview of Retail Customers and Registrars
TV and CC customer and registrars were contacted via phone for short surveys in January 2005. The objective of the survey was to find out how TV customers are currently using their domain names and learn from any success stories. And the objective for registrar surveys was to discover why their accounts had either increased or decreased in TV/CC registration activity.
Eight interviews were completed with TV retail executives. Their roles ranged from marketing, TV production managers, and program directors. IT and web management teams were excluded from the sample. The interviewed companies are Major League Baseball, The Economist, Future Planet, Ultimate Fighting Championship, Beantown Productions, Turner Broadcast Network, and Bacardi Global Brands. The geographic coverage is UK, Asia and US.
Nine interviews were completed with TV/CC registrars. Registrars were selected based on significant increase or decrease in TV/CC registrations in 2004. Seven international registrars and two US-based registrars were phone interviewed. Countries participated are Germany, France, Spain, Korea and US.
Highlights of customer surveys
Need to provide new technology such as blog pages
TV domains were purchased as an alternative to .com domains
Brand awareness is easier to create with entertainment sports
Successful use of TV domains will need to include the domain in all marketing materials and use of the domain as the main site not redirected
“demo” tape sites need to be created for easy access and quick viewing
Registration site for webinars
Surveyed TV customer sites
www.mlb.tv – “Success story (case study) was written on MLB.com/MLB.TV with SAS in November 2004. This report can be found at
http://www.sas.com/success/mlbcom.html www.beantown.tv www.tnt.tv www.h20.tv www.ufc.tv
Highlights of registrar surveys
For TV –
Lack of market position and awareness are the barriers to TVdomains
Adding TV in the marketing portfolio increases sales
TV is associated with the Media Industry.
Majority of users do not register TV by itself. They are usually bundled with other TLDs.
Low knowledge within registrar base of customer profile, market trends or customer behavior
US registrars cite trend for defensive third level domain registrations, which customers do not like to do.
Incentives to purchase TV are summarized as
Brand protection
Higher name availability than .com
Perception that TV will indicate to consumers that the site features broadband broadcasting, video streaming, or related services
Speculators view it as an inexpensive investment
For CC –
Lack of market awareness is the general barrier to CC domains
Internationally, low perception as to position of CC
No significant linguistic or semantic connotation in Europe or Asia
Some customer in Spain associate CC with cubic centimeter
Increase in use CC domain for advertising pay per click (PPC) market
Incentives to purchase CC are summarized as:
Use as personal web sites cited in all three geographic regions
Brand protection, particularly in Spain where trademark and patent companies are currently raising the perception of importance of online brand protection
High name availability than .com or .net
Customers are going to the secondary market to purchase CC
European and Asian registrars perceive CC as having value in the secondary market
Motorcycle hobbies and motorcycle association are some of the positionings currently being used
60% of CC registrations are for brand protection, and 40% are for personal websites
Conclusion
Overall, the customers believe there is a lack of TV/CC positioning and branding awareness in the mass market. Creating TV with a media positioning could generate new demand in the market place. In addition, bundling TV with website and media enabled tools will increase interest in the purchase of TV.
