Abstract
Wine regions constantly question their visibility on the internet to fully be able to embrace the 3.0 digitalization. Recent controversy of the geographic domain name “.vin” and “.wine” has raised awareness of the need to be proactive in Internet naming. The objective of the chapter is to understand how wine regions could develop a digital territory strategy to increase their competitive advantage by using specific geographic domain name. The chapter provides an overview of origin, role, and functioning of stakeholders involved in the internet naming industry. The specific case of Alsace wine region has been investigated with a specific focus on the digital wine territory strategy based on the development of the “wine.alsace.”
TopIntroduction
The global wine sector is changing with the emergence of mass marketing and changes in consumption practices linked to the development of the Internet. Relationship to wine consumption has become more informed, intelligent, community-based and connected. Information and communication technologies (ICT) open up tremendous opportunities for wine companies in the promotion and marketing of their products and services and in the development of their distribution channels. According to the World Internet Stats, there is an estimated 4,5 billion Internet users worldwide. The Internet has gone from a few networked computers to a network accessed by billion people, from Western phenomenon to a global one, and from research roots to an engine of commerce accounting for trillions of dollars in commerce (World Internet Stats, 2020). The trend is towards disintermediation, i.e. shortening of wine distribution channels, which leads to an increase in online sales via virtual stores (ProWine, 2019). The total volume of wine sold through electronic commerce in Western Europe increased by 66% between 2010 and 2017. More than 360 million liters of wine were sold online in 2017, which represents around 4% of the total volumes of wine outside trade in Western Europe (RaboResearch, 2019). In France, online wine sales experienced an average annual growth of more than 30% between 2008 and 2015, to stabilize at 6.9% in 2020 (France Agrimer, 2020). And even if it seems to have entered a phase of maturity, the market value is estimated at 500 million euros.
In this perspective, wine regions have to question their visibility on the Internet to fully be able to embrace the 3.0 digitalization. In this context, there are approximately 362 million domain names registered worldwide .Com, managed by the American multinational Verisign, is the first extension with around 145 million domains registered (Verisign Domain Name Industry, 2019) However, a study shows that one in two companies in France have no visibility on the web compared with other European companies (McKinsey, 2014). The question is to understand how wine regions could develop a digital territory strategy to increase their competitive advantage by using specific geographic domain name. More specifically, the objective of the chapter is to know how to make « wines.alsace » a competitive advantage for the Alsace wine industry.
Key Terms in this Chapter
OPV: Professional wine organizations.
Domain Name System (DNS): Domain names and IP addresses.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICAAN: The global coordination of the DNS Root, IP addressing, and other Internet protocol resources is performed as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions.
New Domain Extension or New Generic Top Level Domain (New gTLDs): Internet extension created after 2012,
IGP: Protected geographic indication.
CIVC: Champagne Wine Council.
Local Providers: (Web agencies or IP companies) are another type of resellers which are not ICANN accredited.
NIC (Network Information Center) or Registry: Entity that manage a Top Level Domain.
Whois: Is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block.
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA): The global coordination of the DNS Root, IP addressing, and other Internet protocol resources is performed as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions.
Certified Registrar Offices: Are in charge for domain name registrations and renewal operations on behalf domain names registrants.
Community Extensions: Are created and managed by a community, examples are .gay, .kiwi, .tatar, .bzh, etc.
Internet Society Association (ISOC): US association created 1992 for promoting the internet and network development.
Two-letter-country-code domains (ccTLDs): domain extension which identifies a country or a territory, examples are ccTLDs: .fr, .de, .it, .es.
CIVA: Alsace Wine Council.
Geographic TLDs: Are dedicated to specific location, region, territory or city, examples are .berlin .london, .nyc, etc. including only four in France: .alsace, .bzh, .corsica, .paris.
Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs): Are commercial extensions, examples are .com, .net, .mobi, .pro, .info, .org, .asia, etc.