Skrill naming
With payment provider Moneybookers beginning to rebrand itself as Skrill, eGaming Review spoke to Julian Artopé, the company's head of marketing and PR.
The online gaming industry is full of instantly-recognisable emblems and brand names, but in recent weeks one less familiar logo has taken pride-of-place at a number of industry events. Moneybookers has begun its rebranding process, and the UK-based payment provider is clearly taking steps to put its new name “ Skrill “ out in the open.
Towards the end of last year, the company’s head of marketing Julian Artopé told eGaming Review the company would adopt the new “easy-to-use” name, and recently revealed more about the thought-process behind the decision.
eGaming Review (eGR): Why did you feel the need to move away from the name ‘Moneybookers’?
Julian Artopé (JA): “Within gaming people know what a bookie is but when u go to any other language 8/10 people might spell the name wrong, or get a negative connotation due to the language barrier,” he explained.
“We were seeing that a lot of non-English speakers didn’t understand [the connotations of the name Moneybookers], especially those not within the gambling sector.
“We drew up a long list of about 1,500 alternative names and got linguists to test them “ what was important was that we got a universal identity that we could own.
“We could have gone for something like ‘pay.com’ but you still get problems with different languages in that case. We wanted something that could become like Google or Skype in its universality.”
eGR: Some people might be unfamiliar with the origins of the word Skrill “ what was the thinking behind the choice of name?
JA: “We’re very aware of the potential pitfalls, but did it because we see the opportunities as very big, and companies are giving us very positive feedback.
“One example of a good rebranding is when Mannesmann was bought by Vodafone, and similarly Abbey’s transition to Santander is an example we would do well to follow.
“But of course there are different companies whose example we don’t want to follow, for instance the Royal Mail and its rebranding as Consignia.”
eGR: Are you concerned how the industry will adjust to the change?
JA: “In the gaming industry we realise that people often do not like change, but what we are building is something which heavily converts at checkout.
“The most important thing for us is getting the process right “ we have set a framework for what we want to become and this will not happen overnight. We may have launched at ICE but that does not mean we are going to change from one day to the next.
“We are looking at completing the rebranding process by the end of 2011, by which point the Moneybookers.com consumer-facing brand will have completely migrated to the new image.
Photo: Co CEOs Martin Ott (l) and Nikolai-Riesenkampff (r)