Expert opinion: “As You Name the Boat, so Shall it Float”
.art Founder Ulvi Kasimov on the importance of brand naming and .art pricing algorithm.
Where does a venture begin? Obviously with a concept, from the initial idea. It is summarised in words and other sign elements (diagrams, figures, tables), but there is no doubt that inevitably, any project starts with a name. It is only so long that a venture can continue without one – it will simply never progress.
This is how we approached the issue of branding or, more broadly, word formation. Very often newly invented brands are words that have to be filled with meaning or context. 25 years ago no one knew what “to google”meant, but “hoovering” and “kleenex” were already part of everyday life.
Interestingly, brands have their own value. Unlike many other words they have their own market price, and various expert rankings exist to evaluate their strength. According to the Interbrand Best Global Brands 2019 Ranking, for instance, Google’s brand was valued at $167 billion. In general, we know what is behind this number.
Over the 22 years of its existence, Google has provided millions of services for billions of people, reached a capitalization of $1 trillion, has been spending an astonishing amount of funds on development, including brand development. A more detailed methodology is published by the authors of these assessments. Those interested in the details will be able to easily find the information with a little googling.
One thing is clear: decades of purposeful, mindful activity and the investment of billions in promoting the brand, including the brand name, will inevitably make the name a multi-billion dollar asset. This is how all brands grow.
If we look at the word “art” as an umbrella brand using the same principle, we will quickly see some interesting facts.
The word “art” has existed for thousands of years, perhaps earlier it was described and sounded differently, but today a wide layer of activities and objects is reduced to this one word. Just like in the case of “google”, over thousands of years the word “art” has been covering billions of people and thousands of types of activities; its great value is almost impossible to estimate.
We all intuitively understand the value component of art. This is why corporations found their own collections and patronize cultural events and institutions. The presence of of Mona Lisa and other iconic masterpieces on Louis Vuitton bags certainly add value to them. But not just.
The art of doing something instantly takes the owner of the skill to the very top. Such is the accumulated power and energy of this brand. In the digital field, this brand has direct and democratic access – the .art domain zone. Quick comparison: nonsense and nonsense.art. See the difference. The change is instant and almost magical.
Is it possible to quantify this magic? In our opinion, there is. Our unique pricing algorithm, for example, compared and rated brands like Google and Mona Lisa. Here are the results: $167 billion for the Google brand and $28 billion for the Mona Lisa brand.
How we developed this patented algorithm should really be a subject for a separately published scientific paper, for exhaustive analysis was done on the basis of so-called “big data”.
How does it work? In general terms… The boundaries of our world run through our language too. Where there is no name, there is nothing for us. Even physicists gave the name of “dark matter” to something that has been identified but hasn’t yet manifested itself.
Similarly, we decided to calculate the cost of words when the umbrella brand of “art” is added to them. We realized that on the Internet all words are mainly concentrated in a limited number of places visited by a large number of people, and in our case, art amateurs or professionals.
One of them is Wikipedia, where we identified more than 70 thousand articles (and therefore places of concentration of words and expressions) about art. There is also Google, TripAdvisor, these are the sites of the largest art publications and museums, theaters and other art institutions. Adding up all kinds of dictionaries and ratings, we assembled more than 150 million potential domains (brands) under the art umbrella. How did what work?
Example: London.art is a dictionary word, while gotoLondon.art is just a phrase, but a great potential brandname for a travel company, or an advertising slogan. The next step was to rank these words and phrases according to their importance for the world of art.
As a result, after a lot of research and experimentation, we came up with 14 parameters that affect the “strength” of an art brand to varying degrees. After months of continuous calculations, we ended up with a total of 3.5 million selected words or art brands. Now they are called .art premium names.
The thing that struck me most about these calculations is which were the most important art brands. Love.art, Home.art, Live.art, Angel.art, Friends.art, Life.art … It was a revelation. Indeed, what else does one need for complete and absolute happiness? Our algorithm turned out to be wise.
As a result of this innovative development, we have the opportunity to compare and value things that were, until recently, incomparable – through their art-brand value.
Here’s another example. As we have already cited above, if Google is worth $167 billion in 2019, then Mona Lisa as an art brand is worth $28 billion. And what is Disney worth now if you compare it with the new price of Mona Lisa?
We got two numbers. First, the Interbrand valuation of $44 billion, where the brand is part of a corporation. In our estimation, Disney is already worth more as a cultural brand: $104 billion.
For us, this was an additional argument that culture and art as such have a huge potential for growth, at least as brands.
I have already written about the fact that art objects are capable of generating regular cash flow in my articles earlier.
What did we end up with?
We were able to show and prove that any brand, when “packaged” as an art, receives additional potential for growth. It can help millions of people and companies build and promote their brands. Business is not only zeros and ones, it is also inspiration, creativity and the joy of creation itself, all of which we are happy to help with.
