US-based pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories has embraced its dot brand as a key tool to support its corporate brand strategy. Abbott is using .ABBOTT to help unite its complex portfolio – that includes research and development, and sales and marketing, as well as regulatory compliance and investor information – under its master brand.
Initiative: Enhancing value and recognition of the corporate brand
Models of use: Branding, Mini sites
Key benefits: Global and local, clear association with master brand, consumer trust
Download Use Case PDFIn 2013 Miles White, Abbott CEO, explained that the company needed to work towards having a “more powerful and meaningful corporate brand.”
This began a strategy aimed at ensuring the vast range of Abbott’s products retained their individual brand value but also established an “overarching connection with [Abbott’s] corporate identity.” The .ABBOTT TLD is the perfect vehicle for strengthening the corporate brand by enabling the creation of an entire Abbott-branded ecosystem online to house products, services, and local sites under the master brand. For such a large organization with diverse complexity of products and jurisdictions, such a shift must be gradual. However, Abbott’s registration and use of approximately 300 .ABBOTT domains demonstrates impressive and focused progress on this strategy.
“it became more important that people have trust in the corporate brand when coming into contact with product brands."Melissa Brotz - Head of Global Affairs, Abbott
Evidence of Abbott’s brand strategy can be seen in one of the trends in the company’s use of .ABBOTT to date. It has created a suite of domains directing to mini sites for various products and services the company offers. Some examples include MOLECULAR.ABBOTT, DIAGNOSTICS.ABBOTT, ENSURE.ABBOTT, GLUCERNA.ABBOTT, and CORELABORATORY.ABBOTT. This approach supports and underlines the overarching company strategy of emphasizing and growing trust in the corporate brand in relation to the company’s products; a clear demonstration of how their dot brand is a key aspect of their overall brand strategy.
In addition to its range of mini sites for products and services, the other important trend of note is Abbott’s use of its dot brand to target locally through country websites. A few examples include IE.ABBOTT (Ireland), MY.ABBOTT (Malaysia), ES.ABBOTT (Spain), and GR.ABBOTT (Greece). This also reinforces the strategy of strengthening the corporate brand. The local country sites under the .ABBOTT domain convey authenticity to each site, inspiring trust and confidence in customers about the information on the site.
Security and authenticity are of primary concern for the pharmaceutical industry as the consequences of fake sites, mis-information and counterfeit products could be life threatening. Product success is heavily reliant on trusted information and communications between a broad spectrum of investors, medical providers, insurers and business partners as referenced by Abbott in its application for .ABBOTT.
