Paysafe has revealed a new brand and positioning, designed to move the payments provider to the next stage of its evolution, according to its CMO.
The overhaul includes a new logo, positioning and messaging – ‘Plug into Paysafe’ – which aims to shift the perception of Paysafe from “distant holding company to a payments platform company”. And the launch has been backed with high-profile sponsorship at the Indy 500 in the US and England versus Barbarians rugby match.
“When I joined what I saw was the opportunity to take it up a level,” CMO Oscar Nieboer, who joined the business in October 2016, told B2B Marketing. “We hadn’t really told our story externally, or defined what we stand for, why we’re different and why we’re relevant.”
Paysafe has numerous different products, including digital wallets Skrill and Neteller, B2B payments processing services and its new online cash solution Paysafecash. And as this tech stack becomes more integrated and sophisticated, the rebrand is about cementing the position of the platform as a portal – hence the messaging of plug into Paysafe – “underlining the fact we’re a one-stop shop”.
Under the rebrand, there has been an inversion of nomenclature. So Paysafe – which previously stood for the group as a whole – has now been appropriated to represent the business’ B2B proposition. While Paysafe:group will now define the activity of the holding company.
The relaunch has corresponded with the completion of Paysafe’s acquisition of iPayment Holdings – a $25 billion-a-year US payment processor – which makes Paysafe one of the top five non-bank processors in the US. This, plus the launch of the company’s new product Paysafecash – which allows consumers to use cash, rather than cards, for online shopping – and the publication of global research into consumer payment trends, provided the business a great platform to tell its story.
All about the customer
The rebrand has taken around a year in development with four months of execution. Paysafe worked with agency Albion on the development of the brand and messaging, and the roll-out was handled in-house.
Oscar shared three routes for the new brand with Paysafe’s executive – one looked at technology, one on products, and one where the focus was placed on the customers.
“The route that performed best in research and the one we felt was truer to us was around our customers,” Oscar says. “So you’ll see the website is all based around solutions for customers, rather than here’s our products and technology. It’s all about lead generation – getting them to what they want to understand quickly, and then hooking them up with something in the business.”
“What we’ve done is try to represent an outside-in view. Package [products] together as solutions. Ultimately it’s about customer-orientated solutions.”
Internally, employees use the concept ‘the new big’ to highlight what differentiates Paysafe, which is scale combined with a start-up culture. “If you talk to our B2B customers, they would say you’re big, but with a boutique feel. Where it sits with the brand is when you plug into Paysafe, you can access all these global capabilities, and all the reach that gives you, but you get the customisation, the relevance and customer focus,” says Oscar.
Putting the brand on track
The brand made its ‘double-debut’ on 27 May – in the US at the Indianapolis 500 motor race, attended by half a million, and seen by 200 million worldwide, with branding on the cars sponsored by Paysafe. And at Twickenham where the Paysafe logo adorned the shirts of the Barbarians as they took on England in a game of rugby union.
“[The Indy 500] does index really well with business leaders, decision-makers and payment professionals – we’ve looked at that research – and we had a strong intuition it would reach both consumers and decision makers, and it’s about getting ourselves on the map,” says Oscar.
“We have the car out there and great ambassadors in Zach [DeMelo] and Pietro [Fittipaldi], our drivers. They’re both young, both up-and-coming, and that’s very much Paysafe. We’re quite good at getting behind the unproven – we don’t overlook the overlooked – we see an opportunity, get behind it, and allow people to realise their dreams. So it’s about building our brand positioning in the US, it gives us reach in North America, and a platform to tell our story.”
At the same time, there’s been a big internal refresh, adapting the brand – Plug into Paysafe: Make it happen – acting as a call to arms for staff as part of the activation.
“I’ve done a few rebrands, but this is the only one where I’ve come in the next day and there was the brand – it was amazing,” says Oscar. “We really wanted to have that overnight wow effect and I think we achieved it.”
