Simplicity Case Study
Success Stories
29.04.24
Hi, I'm Amir Bashir, Co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer at Simplicity.
Who is Simplicity?
We are a not-for-profit financial services provider. We have a couple of flagship products including KiwiSaver and our investment funds.
What motivated you to choose a .kiwi domain?
The fact Simplicity is born and bred Kiwi. We started here in the North Shore eight years ago. We were excited about the .kiwi domain as it allowed us to retain our Simplicity name as simplicity.co.nz was taken. This allowed us to own our brand. It made sense for us from the get-go.
The options were limited in that front, and then we came across the warriors.kiwi, and I think our co-founder Sam Stubbs mentioned it and said let’s go with that. It was my first time actually hearing of it, but it allowed us to have Simplicity as one word so we could really own our brand.
How has the .kiwi domain helped express your brand's Kiwi identity to your customers?
We are a Kiwi company, and proud of it. It aligns with our KiwiSaver product; Simplicity KiwiSaver, so simplicity.kiwi works well and it has become part of our DNA.
How do you believe it has helped you stand out online?
It has helped us stand out by becoming the only not-for-profit or KiwiSaver financial service provider that has a .kiwi in its domain. Everyone else had the traditional .co.nz and the .com, and we had no interest in going internationally at the time. It made sense. It was the perfect timing.
Have you noticed any positive impacts on customer engagement or brand perception since adopting a .kiwi domain?
Yes, the perception has been very positive in the sense that it allowed us to not have an overly long domain like simplicitykiwisaver.co.nz which was our alternative. It helped people straight away know we were a Kiwi KiwiSaver company, as the domain actually supports that.
How do you believe the .kiwi domain has contributed to building trust and recognition amongst your audience?
As a proud Kiwi company selling a KiwiSaver product, this just was another piece of the puzzle that made sense. There were some concerns about the unknown. We were worried about the SEO and the visibility of the .kiwi. But we quickly found that wasn’t a problem. I think it was helpful to have brands like the Warriors up and running with their .kiwi domain before us. So it wasn't an issue for us.
How has the .kiwi domain grown with you?
Since we launched the simplicity.kiwi website, we have added another domain to our product suite, which is simplicityliving.kiwi. We can see this as a continuous journey and it will grow with us as we add more products under our Simplicity umbrella.
What advice would you give to other New Zealand businesses considering adopting a web domain?
The advice I would give is we need more Kiwi brands using .kiwi! The more people supporting the .kiwi domain the more it becomes accepted.