Fairwinds Partners just published a white paper on the new gTLD’s entitled “2013: The Year of the Address Bar” including results from a survey of 2,008 Internet users between the ages of 13 and 64 about their awareness of and attitudes toward new gTLDs
“2013 will be the year that Internet users wake up to the world of Internet addresses and start thinking more about what they put into their address bars.”
“Starting next year, the top level of domain names, or the space to the right of the dot, will open up to vast new options beyond the existing .COM, .ORG, and others. Rather than a short list of simple suffixes, Internet users will now have a plethora of possibilities from which to choose.”
FairWinds Partners, in addition to conducting research into Internet user behavior and past gTLD launches, worked with InsightsNow, to survey and found that nearly three-quarters (74%) were entirely unaware of the existence of the New gTLD Program, and only 4% could successfully name an anticipated new gTLD.
44% of Internet users surveyed indicated that new gTLDs either probably or definitely would cause confusion. After learning more specific details about how some new gTLDs would be used, this number dropped slightly to 33%. While this drop bodes well for future new gTLD owners, a solid third of all survey participants still felt strongly that new gTLDs would cause a significant amount of confusion among Internet users. Among those participants that reacted more favorably to the idea of new gTLDs, only 27% reported that new gTLDs either probably or definitely would not cause confusion among Internet users.
Education about new gTLDs broadly, and about individual new gTLDs specifically, can allay fears of confusion among consumers, as evidenced by the 11% decrease in confusion among Internet users after receiving some basic education about specific new gTLDs.New gTLD owners will need to devote efforts to educating consumers about new gTLDs. This is especially important for brand owners who applied for new gTLDs, because their new gTLD efforts may have the potential to seriously impact their brand image in the eyes of consumers.
Confusion drops by 11% after consumers receive limited education about new gTLDs.
On average, 70% of participants replied that they would trust branded gTLDs, while only about half (51%) reported that they would trust generic-term gTLDs. . Similarly, participants were 19% more likely to consider branded gTLDs to be legitimate, as compared to generic-term gTLDs
Brand Owners’ Interaction with Consumers Online Will Never Be the Same.…
