.brands Spotlight: DVAG

The .brands Spotlight series takes a deep-dive into interesting facets of the .brands space, looking at Stats Hub data to find insights about how .brands are being used across different industries, regions and organizations. This Spotlight piece focuses in on German financial services company DVAG’s use of its .brand TLD.

Summary

German financial services company Deutsche Vermgensberatung Aktiengesellschaft (DVAG) has registered more domains under its .brand TLD than any other organization, and almost all of these are already in use. Its strategy of creating high volumes of domains and redirecting these to existing, deep website content is a great example of how a .brand can complement an organization’s digital strategy without impacting existing assets.

Key statistics

Overall rank by domains registered

1st

Key use cases

Industry spotlight: Improved navigation & a consistent brand experience

Redirects simplify website navigation

With individual pages for its financial advisors, countless customer service pages, several social media profiles and more, there is a lot of detail throughout DVAG’s website and other digital assets. Like many big brands, creating meaningful and accessible pathways to this content in order to attract and engage customers can be difficult, and often relies on search engines, shortened links or internal navigation and site search tools.

96% of DVAG’s .brand domains redirect to existing locations online. The majority of these are on DVAG’s primary website, dvag.de – often resolving to long, complex URLs that would otherwise be impossible to advertise and expect customer recall. By creating .brand domains for these pages, DVAG has built simpler pathways to this content without impacting its existing websites or relocating any website assets. Some examples include magazin.dvag, finanztag.dvag and tv.dvag.

In addition to content on its own sites, DVAG has created ‘shortcuts’ to its social media and other online profiles, allowing it to keep the DVAG brand front-and-center, even when outside its owned digital assets. For example, fb.dvag forwards to the corporate Facebook page, flickr.dvag takes visitors to its photo collections on Flickr, and youtube.dvag redirects to DVAG’s YouTube channel. This consistent experience not only reinforces the brand at all customer touchpoints, but also trains customers and audiences that .dvag is the pathway to authentic, trustworthy DVAG content online.

Highlighting talent with virtual business cards

Several of DVAG’s redirecting domains contain the name of a financial advisor, which then redirects to a deeper page of content. For example, Investment Adviser Jürgen Peters has a personal profile page at jpeters.dvag and financial advisor Annett Weigel can be contacted at annett-weigel.dvag.

This strategy has two major benefits for DVAG. Firstly, as a company that relies on the expertise and professionalism of its consultants to further its brand in the real world, this dynamic can be continued in the virtual world by aligning these personalities with the DVAG brand through individual, branded domains. Close alignment of the brand with the team means that every time customers have a positive, offline experience with a consultant or advisor, loyalty or positive sentiment in the DVAG brand can be built by extension.

Secondly, the ability to raise a personal profile and build your position as a thought leader can be an appealing perk for many employees. Offering public-facing staff their own branded profile page as part of the broader DVAG website could contribute to attracting and retaining quality talent for the company.

Conclusion

DVAG’s widespread redirects strategy cleverly utilizes brand domains to create meaningful, memorable pathways to deep website content while also building a consistent brand experience for anyone engaging with DVAG online. It is a great example of incorporating .brand domains into a broader digital strategy without impacting existing website assets, and in fact further strengthening these tools in the process.

GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business as of August 3, 2020.