This Newsletter is about new gTLDs and dotBrands "only" from the ICANN new gTLD program.
The .RIHANNA new gTLD
I investigated a little bit and I found that no super star operates his or her own Name or Trademark as a new domain name extension. As a fan, I believe that the Rihanna string is a good case figure to take a look at...in terms of online innovation.
The first thing that I did was to enter Rihanna on a search engine: not only I made a mistake in writing the name (mixing the “i” and the “h”) but I also forgot an “n”. I found plenty of content on the first page about my superstar. In the order: some “top stories” from various sources of information, then the Wikipedia page, the link to her twitter account, a rihannanow.com website with an old kind of title, her Instagram account, then a YouTube channel, etc…
There is a “.com”
I notice the RihannaNow.com domain name is listed but I didn’t see the Rihanna.com, even if it does exist. It seems that someone chose to communicate on the RihannaNow.com rather than the Rihanna.com domain name. I sincerely hope that this same person noticed that there is a “.now” domain name extension coming anytime soon: something like Rihanna.now could be an idea but hey...this is not the subject here.
All superstars tend to do the same
Beyoncé displays the exact same content in Google, in the exact same order. Madonna does almost the same too. I quite like Sting too and guess what: they all have their name ending in “.com” and the exact same communication channels (Yes Wikipedia is a channel, Twitter, Facebook, a website… but none uses his or her name as a new domain name extension: there is are no domain names ending in “.rihanna”, “.beyoncé” (with an accent), “.madonna” or “.sting”.
Rihanna is not just a singer
Rihann is a singer but she also “is” lingerie with Savagex and “cosmetics” like perfume trademarks and names, etc: dozens of generic strings like “perfume”, “fashion”, “bio”, “shop”, or “fragrance” that any communication specialist would want to use on the Internet to increase visibility for the super start’s products: doesn’t something like www.perfume.rihanna looks descriptive? What about www.fragrance.rihanna : not nicer than www.rihannanow.com/fragrance/?
What about www.charity.rihanna : wouldn’t it be instantly recognizable when searching for her involvement into the Clara Lionel Foundation?
Music.rihanna makes sense too and there are many more to suggest when digging on her main website.
Branding but not only
There are many other advantages when focusing on one single branding for Internet (security, brand protection, positioning, U-N-I-C-I-T-Y, etc…) instead of several different domains names but if many, like Jovenet Consulting, have already discussed this, there is one thing for sure: there are no superstars to have considered taking advantage of the new gTLD tool as a Brand...yet.
