Brand management

Svenska Spel is a well-known gaming company, with popular gaming forms and has paid out the highest winnings in the history of Swedish gaming. Brand management is aimed at maintaining the Company’s favourable image and also continuing to strengthen values such as consideration and entertainment.

ublic confidence in Svenska Spel, its brand and sense of responsibility are crucial in a situation in which competitors can offer similar gaming forms, occasionally under more favourable conditions than those to which Svenska Spel must conform. Nevertheless, being able to offer customers the market’s most enjoyable games is a goal towards which the Company strives.

Svenska Spel’s brand

The Svenska Spel brand is strong and well known and derives its strength from gaming pleasure, the Company’s strong product portfolio, the safety and security of players, as well as from the many years of partnership with Swedish sport.

During 2010, responsible gaming was communicated in a number of ways:

• The new 18-year old age limit for the purchase of lottery tickets.
• Over a number of years, the "Spela Lagom" non-excessive gaming message has been part of Svenska Spel’s marketing. To make gaming responsibility measures clearer for players, and thus also making it easier to seek help, the spelalagom.se website is being increasingly integrated with svenskaspel.se.
• In advertisements, Svenska Spel provided information on the obligatory weekly budget on svenskaspel.se, which is a distinct and concrete approach to working with responsible gaming. The purpose is to get the player to think carefully before playing and thus minimise the risk of placing larger stakes than planned.
• The acquisition of Playscan AB is a strategically important measure and a competitive advantage for Svenska Spel. Playscan’s tool – Playscan™ – assists players in keeping control in the event of changes in their gaming behaviour over time.

Responsible marketing

Svenska Spel complies with the guidelines of the European Lotteries, Toto Associations and the Ethical Council of the Gaming Industry (SPER), which have been drawn up in cooperation with industry organisations in Sweden and Europe.

A survey on attitudes gives a top ranking to the Svenska Spel’s Triss, Stryktipset and Lotto games. These games are considered to entail less risk for gambling problems than products such as gaming on the Internet, Vegas VLTs and casino gaming, which are therefore marketed on a very limited basis.

According to SIFO’s (a non-bias governmental consumer research institute) advertisement surveys, Svenska Spel’s share of the total advertising spend (or share of voice) in the gaming industry is 24 %, while foreign-based Internet companies now account for most – 47 % – advertising investments in the Swedish gaming market. Svenska Spel safeguards its market leadership through efficient marketing. The gaming experience and security offered should make Svenska Spel the players’ first choice. The "Spela Lagom" non-excessive gaming message is found in all advertisements.

Superbrands: Svenska Spel and Triss

The year’s Superbrands Awards was the fifth since its inception in Sweden in 2004. Superbrands is a worldwide company that nominates the strongest brands in the eighty countries that it covers. The award is based on how consumers experience the brand. Svenska Spel’s parent brand and Triss were nominated as two of the 300 strongest consumer brands in Sweden in 2010.

Partnership with sport

Svenska Spel is major cooperative partner for sport. The Company contributes to both broad-based activities and elite ventures, and sport offers a major return. Svenska Spel’s brand is strengthened and is perceived as being more positive by being visible in these contexts. Sponsoring is one way to build the brand and the business – completely in line with the mandate from the owner. In 2010, Svenska Spel made the strategic choice of focusing solely on the sponsorship of sport, and thus the contribution to the Medieval Week on the island of Gotland ceased. As a partner of Swedish sport, Svenska Spel focuses on visibility, value in return and evaluation.

Svenska Spel is the main sponsor of the Swedish Sports Confederation (RF) and the largest associations – football, ice hockey, handball, bandy and floor ball. The Confederation’s vision is to create "the world’s best sports". This comprises values such as pleasure, democracy, equal right of participation and good sportsmanship. The partnership between Svenska Spel and the Sports Confederation enables training for leaders and active members to help promote healthy values in sport. The agreement entails that RF receives a total of SEK 60 million over three years.

Svenska Spel’s partnership with sport resulted in a number of other valuable investments, including:

• Tipselit, which was launched in 1992, is a partnership project between the Swedish Elite Football Association, the Ladies Elite Football Series Association and Svenska Spel aimed at advancing Swedish elite footboll. There is a concerted focus on young talents between the ages of 14 and 19, associations and leaders.
• The start-up in 2009 of the "Supporter Team", a successful cooperative venture between Swedish Elite Football (SEF) and Svenska Spel in a bid to promote a healthy and positive culture on the terraces. A campaign was conducted on the web in 2010, (supporterlaget.se – which attracted more than 90,000 visits), as well as on TV and radio.
• Svenska Spel annually awards a number of scholarships to promote inputs into sport: The Elite Scholarship, the Sports Journalist Scholarship, Svenska Spel’s Social Responsibility Prize, the AllFair Prize and The Swedish Sports Leader Prize. A select group of scholarship recipients are recognised on SVT’s annual Sports Gala, which is sponsored by Svenska Spel.
• The Swedish Ice Hockey Federation and Svenska Spel have focused on the development of coaching and talent since the early 2000s. During 2010, efforts were intensified to train coaches.
• Svenska Spel’s youth bonus: The five teams in Second Division Football that have used the most young players during the season can divide SEK 1 million among them. The players must have been born in 1989 or later.
• The "Susanne Erlandsson Cup" was established by Svenska Spel and will be awarded to the ladies football team that, starting 2010, wins the final of the Swedish Cup. KIF Örebro was the first team to win the new trophy.
• In 2010, Svenska Spel sponsored the "Vår Ruset" jogging event.
• The F-17 series is a cooperative venture with the Elite Ladies Football Association. The objective is to permit younger players who did not get a place on the first team to meet qualified opposition nevertheless. In 2009, eight teams participated nationwide. In 2010, the number of teams grew to 16, with 20 inquiries ahead of 2011.