foreign [Music] it is a pleasure to be joined by Sebastian the CEO of the wife media hi and thank you so much for joining us how are you hi I'm well thank you uh right firstly could you tell us a bit more about b-wife media how did the company start how far it has come and uh what offering have you got cool um so the US media was founded at the end of 2018 is a Swiss Swiss company with a Swiss headquarter but we are now quite quite spread globally um we're a digital first but in general marketing Media company for for i-game space and our biggest focus is on working with Publishers working with all kinds of channels and manage Partnerships with igaming clients um I would say the biggest focus of the company in the past years was always working on the biggest Sports Publishers in the world I have a very very strong portfolio with some of the biggest Live Score partners and some of them even even exclusively were exclusive with a 365 scores or B soccer which are two of the biggest and most popular Livescore applications very very um loved by millions of friends all over the world and over the years we've expanded quite a bit from working with with sports Publishers to working with more as well Performance Marketing channels whether that's PPC paid social programmatic advertising influencer marketing to offer more opportunities for all of the gaming clients they're working with um but also to find more ways of of sort of um like say sucking in new clients because ultimately we we want to work with the main sports Publishers as best as possible which means to um to have the best gaming clients um and it's it's sometimes much easier to build these um relationships with gaming clients if you work purely Performance Based um and then once you've built the trust then they're more um inclined to do me bigger Market media branding campaigns with you so that that really really helps um and we've also expanded to our own affiliation business in the last a year or so and uh grown there uh quite nicely especially in Latin America and Brazil well it sounds fantastic you've already achieved a lot in just a few years time great and so you just mentioned latam and I know this is a key market for you for how long um have you focused on this emerging market and in your personal opinion why is that such an important market for sports media and for sport betting naturally so so I would say Brazil in in Latin America's Spanish-speaking markets has been a focus for us since the very Inception of the company um on the one hand side we've always seen it as one of the strongest and and fastest developing emerging markets in the in the eye gaming space um and secondly it was sort of given to us um in the sense of um I mentioned previously 365s question D soccer as two of the biggest Sports application that they were working with and they have a very very strong user base particularly in Brazil Latin America they're two of the most popular apps there um which meant of course working working with them and um selling selling the the app and and finding the best eye gaming Partnerships for them in that particular region which then naturally led to us having a big focus on that region and and finding the best Partnerships for them and and maximizing monetization for their for their sports apps um which meant we ultimately build a team in Montevideo so we have a team in Uruguay that is looking after the Spanish-speaking Market we have a team in in Rio de Janeiro that is looking after the Brazilian Market um and through these let's say local operations and local relationships Within I think in a very very good position to to capitalize on these growing markets um and yes I think if if you look into the global space um besides the Gold version the US Brazil is is is the second most important and and most interesting market and um yeah it's just the the way Sports the sports craziness love for sports is um spilled into all of the the people living there when I visited Brazil last year it was just insane to see you know live the the love and passion for for the football game I was in the Maracana stadium and and seeing an amazing match and it's it's really it's it's for everyone and which was also amazing to see that you know everyone in the family um is very much involved and you go to the beach and you see everybody just playing sports so it's compared to here in Europe and particularly Central Europe it's it's very different and I think also this this passion for sports then translates to um sports betting and gaming as a form of entertainment and um I think this is this is why it's so successful I think this is why it's spreading so much um whether it's sports betting on their on their favorite clubs and they're super crazy about their their loyalty about the club so whether it's um forms of fun entertainment you look at Aviator as a crash game having you know crazy impact on the on the casino Market and yeah it's just perfectly suited for this kind of very very passionate markets yeah I'm um I'm getting the sense that the whole industry is so excited about Brazil and I would even compare it there is excited as they were when Pascal was overturned in the U.S so and it's good you guys already have the competitive Advantage you've been there for a while now are there any other Latin American countries that compared to Brazil in your opinion um oh there's the right answer no that I mean the right answer would be no uh definitely there is no there's no Latin American country that come can compare to to Brazil neither in in in size no in scalability nor in in demand there are obviously markets that are in terms of it depends what you look at it or which best best answers it depends so there are markets where you would say okay there's a there's a stronger economy potential player values for for sports betting and casino providers are a higher and if you look at Uruguay for example now you have with super match one big operator but it might be it might be further opened up um argue has one of the strongest economics economies in in Latin America most European countries you say in in Latin America and of course if if that Market opens up more even though it's significantly smaller Playboys would be very very high um you have Mexico as a potentially very strong Market but it's it's a very difficult Market to prep um you have such a strong dominance by Caliente for the past years they sponsor everything in in and have all kinds of placements whether it's digital or offline um that are worth taking have done an amazing job in the past years and it's going to be very difficult to challenge it um I know of one brand that is going to launch there that I think is going to be able to at least challenge them on a good level where most others have have struggled so so far um Colombia is is a great Market because it's it's licensed and but still as far as I'm kind of informed it's still payments is a big issue even though it's sports betting is is legalized Banks aren't so fond of um of the market and I'm aren't making payments very easy which has a huge impact on on player values and and payment options and Purdue and shield I think are very interesting countries especially Chile also with a very very strong Casino Market um but I every every Market has its opportunity and what we see is that you know if there is a brand very successful in Brazil that they tend to you know Venture into other Latin American markets um even though it's completely different um and then there are very very strong Latin American markets that so okay we have a very very strong base and now we try to um catch the bigger fish and and also launch in Brazil all right well that was very interesting Insight thank you for that and Beyond Latin what other markets is B wise media working in um in in general we work globally um I would say really on on a global scale even though our our Focus has always been on Emerging Markets where where you see growth where you see a very fast paste the landscape on on regulations where you see very very strong Investments being made by companies um because of basically new markets opening up because of Brands wanting to to get in first um or or rather first and then want to gain market share Emerging Markets provide those opportunities so it's basically all Emerging Markets is everything in in Brazil and Latin America it's African markets Asian markets um there are very few markets I would say in in Europe where um that the landscape is very attractive for for us and with our business model plus there there are from an advertising perspective there are so many restrictions in in the main European markets now that it makes advertising very very difficult it makes it Market is very saturated and I would say our we we as a company were you know we see ourselves as a problem solver so we're a problem solver for um our clients will Problem Solver for um for publishing other channel partners and the biggest problem is always understanding the markets understanding the gaming space um so if I work in in Brazil with uh with a big publisher that means I understand the gaming side of things very very well have a big portfolio of you know a big number of of clients um that that can can work through us on these Publishers I'm helping them solve the problem on working with gaming clients and solving kyc and solving compliance and solving payments and of course understanding how to best work with them in the same way if I have a European betting brand that is venturing into Brazil we're solving their problems on understanding the the market optimizing the product for uh for local promotions we're helping them with um with you know product consultation with promotions um but mainly to understand how does the market work from a marketing perspective and then we create Market entry strategies and explain you know so look this is a brand ambassador opportunity this is a sponsorship opportunities and only if you have local operations and key markets you actually understand that and we've seen a lot of brands that for example have recently entered into Brazil that have been quite burnt by by overpaying significantly for certain sponsorships or or TV deals and led deals simply because they don't have the local knowledge and they'll go there and they're being fed European prices whereas a local operator would get like half the price and we're there to to avoid that right that sounds great and I know you guys focus on live score apps could you explain a bit more about that um it's again it comes it comes back to let's say our the Inception of the company and when we started working we're fortunate to to build really really big Partnerships with some of the biggest um Livescore applications in the world these have been the core of the business for the past four years and are Remain the core of our business for the next next years and decades um it also comes down to Simply what we enjoy uh working with I I personally love um Sports application I've been a huge uh obsessive user of last applications the past 10 years and just enjoy working with them and from I think from a marketing media perspective they they are the perfect Channel they're the perfect opportunity to show your brand um and we look at them as a premium organic Channel with you know high value with a high value and a high intent target audience um if you are a user in using a Livescore application like 365 scores be soccer a a sofascore livescore.com and so on um then you you love live data you love statistics most of them show betting odds in in their in their app and sponsored betting odds and this helps make an informed decision and it basically the focus is never on running bonuses or promotions the focus is always on saying okay how can I be as close as possible to the user on in a sort of live betting environment so um promoting a brand on Livescore app means you target the best audience and you Target them ideally through Arts promotions which means you're actually promoting the product that you have rather than promoting um a bonus or free spins or any kind of incentives by saying here look these are this is the live score and this live score and this is the live odds and you have different betting markets and you you get the the user as close as possible to the actual product to the actual um betting product this is a great great driver for acquisition plus it's also the ultimate [Music] um retention because the the users that are using these last applications they use them every day and they're using significantly more than they would use a a betting app so by continuously being present in these apps and and by sponsoring odds Integrations and and such kind serves as a perfect retention tool because they see um for whatever matches they're following they see the the sponsored odds of your brand all of the time so it's for it's just a perfect channel for me to to advertise as a brand and it's been incredibly successful um for us for the Publishers for our clients in the past 10 years and I don't see that changing anytime soon go ahead and I can see why it's successful because I like what you said that it's um it's not about uh flooding um people with bonus codes all the time and I think yeah I think people appreciate that especially in in Europe they will uh right my final question what are you looking forward to the most uh for the rest of the year um I think for us as a for us as a company we're quite in a transformation period um we've grown quite a lot in the last four years much more than I than I than I ever imagined um we we surpassed the 60 70 people's Mark recently and now we have so much great talent in the in the team um and there were so many new opportunities that that have opened up in the last six months or so is that we we're looking at okay how can we you know it's not about growing more it's about how can we make everything that we have better so um we we've identified a number of key challenges that we that we have in our in our business um in in in working with our clients and working with her with Publishers and rather than doing more um we said okay how can we fixate on what we're doing currently um and try to make everything better before we continue to grow and that also means we we've we've been lucky we onboarded a great technology and development team and so now we are focused a lot on building our own um I.T department on building our own ad Tech so we want to transition a little bit more from purely um direct sales and marketing to also being a reputable ad tech company in the future um so I hope what I'm looking most forward to in the next uh I'd say six to nine months would be our transition and our growth on the on the technology side and and being able to look at every campaign in every activity that we have with Publishers and and clients who say look through our own technology through our Solutions we're not only able to facilitate the best Partnerships but we're also making every single partnership better and most more successful and I think this would provide much greater value for us as a company and would put us in a better position to then push for more growth in the coming years that sounds very exciting and I'm sure you have a great rest of uh 2023 and I certainly look forward to catching up with you soon to see what you guys have been up to in a few months time thank you so much for thank you so much thank you thank you foreign [Music]