The Exness rebrand

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Members of the burgeoning TradeInformer WhatsApp channel (lurkers welcome) will have noticed that we were recently chatting to someone at Exness.

At the end of last year we looked at one of the company’s new marketing campaigns, the suspected mastermind behind it, and why it was similar to some of his old work.

That was, of course, Alfonso Cardalda, who joined Exness just under two years ago, after over a decade at PokerStars.

And with Exness recently rebranding, TradeInformer flew all the way to the balmy shores of Cyprus to chat to Alfonso about the thinking behind the rebrand, how effective other campaigns have been, and some of his own background. You can watch the video on YouTube via the link below…

…or read the transcript.

DK: Exness just launched a major rebrand. What was the thinking behind that?

The rebrand was a big, big exercise. During our 15th anniversary, we did many activities, but for us there was also this massive milestone, that was to take the brand to the next level. 
In the past 15 years, we achieved a lot of good things in terms of trading volumes and the features we offer to our customers. But our brand, it didn’t have any kind of evolution, right?

So since I joined the company, we thought that we really need to take the brand to the next level. We started working [with] all the different elements, the DNA and the values of the company. And we believe that there are two core pillars that define our brand – that is the head and the heart.

The head is the more mathematical exercises that we do every day, the product, the numbers, all the trading features. And the heart is our passion, right? The passion that we have for what we do. Especially myself, being Spanish, I am very passionate. So we built a concept that mainly is based on these two elements and we ended up delivering the ‘Exo’ brand.

That ‘Ex-o’ is a combination of everything that I was describing. On top of that, of course, we wanted to redefine our logo, the colours, and so on. We believe that now we have a fresher brand, that is more connected to the DNA of what Exness is. 

And yes we just launched it, things are going smoothly now. But there were thousands of things we had to review, over the product, website, and so on. But we are really, really happy with it.

DK: Walking around the offices here, you can see lots of people programming and the feel is definitely like a tech company. That’s obviously great in some ways. But from my career so far, I would say it’s often difficult to convince more technically-minded people about the benefits of marketing, branding, and so on, just because they are more intangible. So why is something like this rebrand important? How does it benefit the company?

That’s a good question. And it’s not only about the benefit, it’s also how people will perceive the benefit and how we’re going to evaluate it.

First, we are a product company. That’s the reality. We are a product company and every single person that works here at Exness, including myself, we are product lovers. So when we started with the process of the rebrand, we wanted to be sure that we found a balance between the quality of our product and also the quality of our communications. That’s the first thing. 

Secondly, without a good brand and without that big penetration across your audience with your brand and without clear top of mind messaging and a clear, let’s say, emotional connection with a brand, you are not going to be successful. We saw that with many, many companies.

So how we are going to measure that? Firstly, there are going to be metrics very, very clearly connected to the brand perception and how that influence has played out. But also how it has helped us to continue growing and scale up.

As you were saying, we are a very tech-oriented company. We have a strong [business intelligence] department, and they have built a very clear measurement framework that we started tracking since day one. By the way, we have already seen a spike in traffic and interaction with the product [since rebranding].

And we are tracking that every month and understanding what the value is, so potentially the next time that we will talk, I can give you more numbers and more metrics than today.

DK: You have actually launched quite a few new marketing initiatives since you joined, notably Team Pro. How have those performed and what was the thinking them?

When I joined, I was in shock because Exness had a very strong team of individuals. And I’m saying a team of individuals because at that time there was not a team per se. We have strong values and one of these values is collaboration, so there is this sense of family.

What I saw, it was a lot of talented people, but they were working in silos. So my first step was to be sure that this team, this group of individuals, they work as one unit, and that was the first challenge.

I’m extremely happy that after two years, we still have the same people that I saw when I entered the business because these people, they were pushing and working very hard to fit with my vision of the business after I joined. So the first step was to align the team to be sure that we’d be like the solid block that we have now. 

The second one was to start redefining the way that we communicate, to start redefining the channel mix that we have to understand, ‘ok, what is the impact of every single marketing dollar that we invest? How can we connect it to the channels we use to connect with customers? How we can diversify the way that we interact with our customers?’

When I joined, the company was focused on a few channels and I wanted to expand that. Team Pro is a good example, right? We are reinventing the way that we communicate with our consumers. 

Before it was unidirectional, so communication from us to them. With Team Pro, we are building an interaction because what we want is not only to send a message to our audience, what we want is this audience to come back to us and to interact with us.

That’s why Team Pro is a key element for that because it’s the face and the voice of Exness. This is one of the examples. 

We also started working on what we call brand performance campaigns. That is a mix between tactical acquisition campaigns and more brand-oriented communications.

And we saw really good results so far. Now with the rebrand, of course, we have many more opportunities to continue developing new ways of communicating with our customers. 

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DK: A lot of people in this industry who are in a role like yours have often spent a long period of time at one broker and then they might move a couple of times between firms. So ultimately it can be a bit insular, people know each other and so on. In that sense you are a bit of an outsider because you were at PokerStars for over 10 years. The period you were there was a time when the company moved from being a start-up to a multi-billon dollar business. What was that like?

I joined PokerStars in 2010, a private company in a strictly regulated environment, with a strong go to market strategy. And we ended up first listing the company when it was acquired by Amaya and then later being part of the biggest gaming group in the world that is Flutter, which I think are listed now on the NASDAQ.

So the journey was very, very interesting – 13 years is a lot of time. You were saying that I am a bit of an outsider but I love trading, I love the product, and it’s something I’ve done for a long time.

When I started talking to Exness, I saw things that were very similar [to PokerStars] not in terms of the business itself, but from a cultural point of view. The way that [Exness Founder] Petr looks at things, how humble he is, how easy it is to talk to him, how even with the size that the company has reached, we are still a family.

So I always say that when I go to the office, when I work with the people that I interact with every day, it’s like being with my family. In fact, I spend more time talking to them than talking to my wife or my mom.

So, first, on this transition, something that was very clear when I came here to Cyprus, when I saw the island, when I saw the office, when I met the people, I remember having dinner with Petr, Maria, and other executives, and leaving that dinner I was thinking, ‘wow, I’m in shock. Look at what these guys are doing. Look how humble they are.’ And also the vision, how clear the vision is, right?

So for me, it was an easy transition and talking more about Exness, I believe it’s a company that potentially has a similar journey to the one that they had at PokerStars, not in terms of going public, but in terms of the strategy, the plans for expansion. Business-wise, in terms of how they think, how they plan strategically, there is a lot of similarity.

DK: So you mentioned PokerStars going public. I think a lot of people in your position would probably take it easy, potentially take up a non-exec type of role or that sort of thing. What prompted you to jump back into this type of position?

Well, my wife wouldn’t allow me to do that. But no, the reality was there was a bit of an internal debate for me at the time. Because I was good at PokerStars. I was happy there. But then I saw this opportunity and also this energy.

I remember the first time that I entered the Exness office, the energy. You could see the passion, people working hard, but also in this more relaxed environment. And so I got hooked, it was an easy decision, there was no real negotiation at all.

So, I came here, we agreed, I went back to Malta, I spoke with my boss, told him that I was resigning. It took him a bit by surprise, but he understood. A few days after I was here already.

DK: Has there been anything since you joined which has struck you in a very positive way? So something that has just made you think, ‘yea I made the right move joining this company’?

Yeah, the product. We have such product superiority and the way that we look into the product and the features and the way that we look at how to take care of the customers for me is fantastic.

Secondly, I wouldn’t be able to work for a company that is not aligned with my values. But then also the growth and the direction and the vision that they share with me – how clear the vision is and how smoothly we are executing step by step every single detail, every single part of this vision in our strategy.

We were talking about trading volume numbers, right? It is impressive. I mean, we’re talking about an extremely healthy company that is doing a good job. I will continue being very humble. That is important. When you were talking to me before we were filming, right, I was saying how important it is here that there is just a sense of normality, that people are grounded.

DK: Exness has now been around for 15 years. The rebrand feels like you putting your mark on the business. I don’t want you to get your crystal ball out but what can we expect from the company in the near future?

What I can guarantee you is in another 15 years, we will be celebrating the 30th year anniversary and we will be doing it bigger and better than what we did before.

For the next five years, we will continue being focused on our customers. We are extremely focused on every single area that interacts with our customers. And it generates this situation where we are never happy because we always want more.

We always want to improve more. So our strategy is to continue optimizing our product, to continue having a very strong proposition for our customers and doing that, there are no doubts that the company will continue growing at the same level that we are growing now.