Logo Neustar
.NYC

Launching a Product to the World’s Toughest Crowd

.NYC

Launching a Product to the World’s Toughest Crowd

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SERVICES

Brand & Graphic Design • UX & UI Design • Campaign Concepts • Campaign Development • Content Development • Media Services • Analytics & Optimization • Segmentation & Personalization

Challenge

Internet giant Neustar tasked us with creating a brand and launching a new TLD (top-level domain) for the city of New York, .nyc. New TLDs like .nyc were unchartered territory, but our experience and success launching the .co domain gave us the chance to blaze the trail with the world watching. Not only did we have to ultimately drive domain sales, we had to develop and launch a brand that would be embraced by the world’s toughest crowd…New Yorkers.

Insight

To be successful, we knew we had to get New Yorkers to adopt .nyc as their own. Through a series of on-the-ground interviews, we learned that the city is an integral part of every New Yorker’s story, whatever that story is. From life-long inhabitants to fresh transplants, everybody had a different story to tell about their role in the city. What makes someone a New Yorker? We let New Yorkers tell us how they Own It.

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Solution

We focused the brand and our launch campaign around the “Own It.” rally cry. Leveraging the pride and passion that New Yorkers feel for themselves and their city, we wanted to remind everyone that the city itself was the perfect platform for their personal success, and that they could take control of that story with a .nyc.

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Leading up to the public launch, a pre registration period opened for specific audiences. We targeted influencers, early tech adopters and business owners through events and unique placements to generate buzz and create an exclusive club for those that could own it first.

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The main destination for all phases of the launch lead to the website DMI developed where New Yorkers could search for their domain of choice, see if i was available and purchase direct from any partner registrar like GoDaddy. This required integrations with backend systems to validate availability and release dates.

Outcomes

The .nyc domain was widely covered in press and media outlets including New York Magazine, USA Today, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Advertising Age, The Village Voice and Gothamist – making .nyc the flagship domain for New York City and the face of the new TLD movement. After launch, the .nyc domain extension experienced the fastest growth of any location-based gTLD to date. With over 50,000 domains sold in less than a month, .nyc lived up to the hype. In addition to direct domain sales, the brand received over 2.7 million paid media impressions, with a

15.4%

media conversion rate - virtually unheard of in the media world.

Additional Work