DOTZON presents the fifth edition of the Digital Company Brands study. After having introduced the study in 2018, DOTZON continued to expand and enhance the underlying data to display how companies successfully use their Digital Company Brands. The Digital Company Brand is the digital dimension of a company brand and mirrors the “digitalness “of a company.

Purely digital company brands developed for the first time in the 1990s with the emergence of Internet business models. Some of them were based solely on a generic Internet address, for example, www.booking.com or www.cars.com. However, the liberalization of top-level domains by ICANN opened up the possibility of using brand names as domain name extensions. Audi, for example, applied for its own top-level domain .audi, and Google applied for .google.

With the help of a top-level domain that bears the name of a company or product, it is possible to anchor the company or product worldwide as a digital brand. The top-level domain helps the brand to achieve outstanding global visibility, supports the brand image and value, and thus represents a real competitive advantage. Consequently, digital brands strengthen the brand identity and customers’ trust in the company and its products.

In order to make these so-called .brands more transparent for companies, agencies, and consumers, DOTZON analyzed for this year’s study the worldwide 475 .brands with their app. 24,000 domain names. For the study, DOTZON analyzed seven key performance indicators (KPIs) with data from two different areas: In addition to quantitative data, such as the number of registered domains, use for email communication and relation between resolving and non-resolving domains, qualitative data, such as search engine performance and Alexa ranks were analyzed as well.

Digital Company Brands 2022 allows a head-to-head comparison of all companies with their own digital identities. Again, the top 10 company brands are mainly from the automotive and financial and Internet sectors.

Digital Company Brands Ranking 2022

1st place: .audi

The German company Audi uses its roughly 1,800 .audi domains to provide all of its German car dealers with a uniform domain extension for customer communication. After two first places and a fifth place in the previous year, the German carmaker again hit the top position. The source were the great Sistrix and Alexa rankings, as well as the number of newly resolving domains.

2nd place: .abbott

Since its delegation, the US pharmaceutical company has been using about 260 domains under its extension. Compared to the last two years, .abbott remains unchanged in second place. Abbott achieved the very good overall result, with first place in the number of domains accessible with https and second place in the number of domains ranked in Alexa.

3rd place: .dvag

The Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG (DVAG) is a financial consulting company operating in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It has been actively using its domain extension for several years. With a total of 5,669 domains, .dvag achieves the top position in the category “number of registered domains.” Combined with another top position for the number of resolving domains, DVAG deservedly achieves third place.

4th place: .bnpparibas

The French banking group has been offering online banking services at www.mabanque.bnpparibas since 2016. Compared to last year’s ranking, BNP PARIBAS improved by three places from seventh to fourth place. Many newly resolving domains, as well as many domains accessible via HTTPS, ensure good values and ranking.

5th place: .seat

The Spanish car manufacturer regularly uses its .brand extension for print and online campaigns. The excellent ranking of .seat is mainly due to its large amount of domain names being actively used. In addition, email use is set up for many of their domains.

6th place. .schwarz

The Schwarz Group includes Lidl and Kaufland, making it the largest retail company in Europe and the fourth largest worldwide. The group uses the extension .schwarz mainly for corporate communication. A second place in the number of domains accessible via HTTP and good rankings in the number of registered and resolving domains secure the sixth place for .schwarz.

7th place: .leclerc

E.Leclerc is a French cooperative and supermarket chain and is now in seventh place after first place the previous year. A brand that is a big part of the everyday life of many French people is among the top 10 rankings. The reason for the placement in the top 10 is a good score for email usage and the number of registered domains.

8th place: .google

Initially, Google was very hesitant to use its own .brand, but it has increased its use in recent years. The US company again reached eighth place in this year’s ranking. This is thanks to the consistently very good values for the number of domains ranked by Alexa and Sistrix. Many domains secured by HTTPS complement Google’s good performance.

9th place: .neustar

The US-based Internet company with roots in telephony has since been operating numerous websites for its services. Good rankings for the number of registered and resolving domains ensure that .neustar is already represented in the Top 10 for the third time and reaches ninth place this year. The fact that many of the domains are resolving and the number of registered domains contribute to this result.

10th place: .goog

The .goog TLD has been delegated nearly half a year after the .google TLD. The second-ranking of a Google TLD among the top 10 is an absolute novelty in the ranking. With the .goog TLD, the US company reaches tenth place, thanks in particular to the many newly resolving domains.

Outlook

Numerous companies have successfully started using their .brand and thus offer a variety of good examples of how their domain extension can be used. Since the last year, we have observed an increase in digital use cases of .brand domains in the previous year. These domains are mainly used in advertising and public spaces, on cars, and in the form of image or launch campaigns. In addition to online channels, companies are increasingly using offline media such as print adverts, flyers, brochures, or bumper stickers.

Other companies that have not yet started to operate their own .brand may want to take advantage of these opportunities as well. For this reason, after application rounds for new top-level domains in 2000, 2004 and 2012, ICANN is planning on opening a new application window within the next few years. The application conditions are currently still being worked out but could be quite similar to those from 2012. With the new application round, every company will once again have the opportunity to apply for its own .brand—from startups to global corporations.

DOTZON is an international management consultancy for digital identities. The detailed study Digital Company Brands 2021 can be ordered (in German) via [email protected].