Positif Politics recongised for .cymru .wales campaign

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Positif Politics was awarded the Best Campaign in Wales accolade at the inaugural Public Affairs Awards for their work with Nominet. A not for profit company, Nominet operates the world’s fourth largest internet registry and manages almost ten million domain names.

From 2011, Positif worked with Nominet to achieve endorsement from the Welsh Government and UK Government for Nominet’s designation as the registrar of the .wales and .cymru domains.

Commenting on the award, Positif Managing Director Daran Hill (pictures right) said: “2014 was the year when Wales finally got its own space on the web and I am proud of the work Positif did supporting Nominet in making this happen.

“This was a campaign that has the potential to improve the identity and image of Wales as a whole and to have been instrumental in making this happen has been both a privilege and a pleasure. We are delighted that work has been recognised by the public affairs industry.”

The below was Positif’s submission in the Best Campaign in Wales category:

Nominet is a not for profit company which operates at the heart of e-commerce in the UK, running the world's fourth largest internet registry and managing almost ten million domain names. Regulations governing generic top level domain names (TLD) had been reformed to allow for expansion, enabling Wales to have its own distinct country based domain name. The campaign was structured and focused to make sure that TLDs were created for Wales and that Nominet was the preferred bidder to run these domains.

From 2011 onward, Positif worked with Nominet to achieve endorsement from the Welsh Government and UK Government for Nominet’s designation as the registrar of the .wales and .cymru domains and raise awareness to support making the Welsh domains a success.

Nominet had relatively low political and public recognition in Wales until the period in question, despite its reputation as having been hugely successful in the role as the guardian of .uk namespace over the past 15 years. By a targeted programme of public affairs we increased brand recognition.

All activity was based on a strategic assessment of the steps that needed to be taken to secure clear backing for the bids and to develop the strongest possible bids.

The Welsh Government opened the process of endorsement in December 2011 and closed it in January 2012. Our objective was fully achieved when a Welsh Government and UK Government supported bid from Nominet to create .wales and .cymru was lodged with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in April 2012.This bid also received backing and clearance from the UK Government in March 2012.

The application also included a Statement of Opinion signed by all 48 eligible Assembly Members (Government ministers are unable to sign). To get this cross party support from all eligible members is almost unprecedented in the history of the National Assembly for Wales.

It was also crucial from a public affairs perspective to demonstrate that the approach of Nominet was complimentary to the Welsh Government’s own Digital Wales Strategy by emphasising how IT can help drive economic growth.

The domains did not, however, become live until 2014 because the bids were still being evaluated by ICANN. The domains were granted in May/June 2014, with the first websites switching over in September 2014.

Specific actions undertaken by Positif to ensure public affairs impact in Wales were as follows:

Development of a Founders Programme of over 50 founder members from across the private, public and voluntary sections in Wales. This included all four political parties in Wales. See press coverage here.
Securing the presence of the First Minister of Wales, Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM, at the ICANN conference in London in June 2014. At that event he confirmed for the first time that the Welsh Government would be making the switch to the .cymru .wales domains.
On 30th September 2014 the first websites to adopt the new domains included the National Assembly for Wales, which staged a formal launch as reported here.