The Brand Registry Group (BRG) is the global association of companies and organisations working together to champion the use of .brand top-level domains and includes some of the world’s most recognised consumer and B2B brands.

After our recent elections, the BRG is pleased to announce that Crews Gore from FOX has recently been appointed as its new President. This interview is being shared publicly to introduce Crews to BRG followers and to share his views on a range of industry matters and the role of the Brand Registry Group moving forward.

BRG: Congratulations on your appointment as the President of the Brand Registry Group. Could you share a little with us about your experience as a .brand owner/manager and how you came to be working with the BRG?

Crews: I joined FOX five years ago, and we have been a long-time member of the BRG. I was excited to find out that we had a .brand as I have always believed that all TLDs have the potential of being successful, if positioned correctly. Once I joined the BRG calls representing .FOX, I was able to see how so many big brands have their own .brand, and we were all helping each other achieve our .brand goals.

I have always been a strong believer in sharing success and non-success stories with our BRG members so that we can all learn from one another. Some of our direct .FOX success stories derive from the ideas and success stories that BRG members shared with me over the past years.

BRG: What have you done with your .brand (.FOX) and what are the key lessons you’ve learned along the way?

Crews: Over the last few years, I have been working with our security and DNS teams on the benefits of a .brand, and it took hold within FOX. I’m happy to report that we have around 100 active .FOX websites internally and externally. A recent example is the launch of our employee FOX communications app on www.one.fox.

Though we have had success with some of our business units using .FOX, we have heard plenty of “no’s.” It’s tough to hear “no” when you know all of the benefits that a .brand offers, but my strategy is to continue to educate colleagues on the positives and see if there is a possibility to use a .FOX domain with that business unit on their next application or website. As long as we take little steps, we will continue to show colleagues and customers that .FOX works just like any other TLD and it helps amplify our brand within the URL.

BRG: What do you see as the most important initiatives for the BRG over the next few years? What are your thoughts on the current state of the next round of new TLDs? Is this important to the BRG?

Crews: I am excited about the opportunities the BRG can offer its members over the next few years! It is important to continue and offer industry updates and content around issues that are important to our members. We would like to increase the creation of this content so that members have a wide selection of material that they can view at their leisure. We have many members that are interested and eager for the next round of new TLDs. This is one of our top priorities at the BRG, so we will continue to advocate for the launch by ICANN in a timely manner.

With the collection of our members, we have the experience and advice for what it takes to launch new TLDs in the next round. If any brand managers have questions about how to launch their new TLDs, they can reach out to us as we love helping set up .brands for success!

BRG: Any predictions on where the industry is heading and key elements that people should be aware of?

Crews: As ICANN continues to move at a snail’s pace on its initiatives, we have seen the launch of new disruptors in the industry, such as crypto TLDs that are using alternative DNS. It can be argued that because of ICANN’s slow pace, these disruptors are launching new services for internet users without going through the governance of ICANN. This could lead to many new disruptors and could be a headache for domain name managers and .brands in the future. We need to continue and push ICANN to launch initiatives in a timely manner, or we risk seeing the internet structure changing drastically over the next decade. As the world continues to digitalize and internet abuse grows, ICANN needs to prioritize the launch of new TLDs for .brands and mitigate DNS abuse.

For more information regarding the Brand Registry Group please visit www.brandregistrygroup.org or follow us on Twitter (@brandregistries) or LinkedIn here.