Betandwin Becomes Bwin

VIENNA, Austria – (PRESS RELEASE) -- The development of the brand betandwin into bwin is based on comprehensive analyses of past images regarding strengths and weaknesses with the goal of developing existing potentials of the original brand betandwin in the best possible way and of creating good fundamental conditions for future developments.

BETandWIN.com Interactive Entertainment AG, which came onto the market in 1999 as a new on-line sport-betting enterprise with an annual turnover of EUR 5.4 Million, developed into one of the world's leading on-line gaming companies within less than seven years. In this time, not only did the market environment - due to technological innovations, among other things - change, but also brand requirements increased as well.

For this reason, the descriptive, high-grade, functional character of the brand name "bet and win" has actually not been suitable for already quite some time for the actual assortment of entertainment offerings, which consist of sport bets, poker, casino games, soft games as well as live-audio- and video-streams.

Also the brand name did not fulfill the desired requirements regarding a differentiation from the competition. Just like betandwin had already, numerous on-line gaming companies decided to use the word "bet" themselves as part of their brand names: Betfair, Bet365, Sportingbet, Centrebet, Betsson, Canbet, Betinternet and bet-at-home, just to name a few.

In the course of international sponsoring activities, the limited readability due to the length of the label name was noticeable upon direct comparison with brands such as Nike, Sony or IBM, which again places influence on the advertising effectiveness of such commitments.

For the reasons mentioned above, the development of a still more clearly formulated brand strategy was necessary, regarding the creation of an umbrella brand name. Using already created brand values as examples, the requirements necessary for agencies included, among other things, preserving brand recognition and acceptance. The examination of the suggestions compiled took place by means of a market study.

In addition, Manfred Bodner, bwin Co-CEO stated: "In the course of a two-year process, we succeeded in creating a communication basis by way of the transformation from betandwin into the brand platform bwin, which covers a broad product portfolio. bwin is not only more generic and substantially easier to recharge emotionally, but also allows us to communicate still faster than in the past. bwin then becomes the right choice for an umbrella brand name in respect of all our requirements."