On 20 June 2011, ICANN's Board approved a program that will add to familiar top-level domains such as .com, .org, and .net, the possibility of having almost any word in any language as a top-level domain.
This massive expansion of the number of possible domain names calls for an equally significant communications campaign to raise global awareness about the program. The rest of 2011 is a communications period dedicated to raising awareness around the world about the opportunity and risks associated with applying for a new gTLD. The Application period opens 12 January 2012 and will run for 90 days.
To help ICANN achieve our goal of educating the world about this program they have issued a request for proposals (RFP). The objective of the RFP is to retain an advertising agency to help ICANN develop, implement and measure the success of a global advertising and awareness campaign for new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs).
This announcement was sourced from :
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05jul11-en.htm