Designated Sponsoring 2.0 – equinet and BrandON launch innovative social media tool

In a partnership with BrandON Media AG, a provider of social intelligence services for the capital market, equinet Bank AG has today launched the innovative social media tool "equinet BrandON Investor Relations". equinet, a provider of customised solutions for all financing and capital market topics, is thereby becoming the first investment bank on the market to enable its own customers in the designated sponsoring area to integrate data from securities trading, social media and investor relations within one tool. "equinet BrandON Investor Relations Solutions" combines the information requirements of capital market participants with the communication possibilities offered by social media. Most analysts, investors and journalists already include time-relevant information from social media and Web 2.0 functionalities in their decision-making processes. The portal can be accessed from both desktop PCs and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Investor relations managers at equinet's designated sponsoring customers can now utilise this online portal to monitor and evaluate how their company is perceived both on social networks and across the entire World Wide Web. The tool pays particular attention to user-friendliness. In an overview screen, customers receive the most important capital market data, and news from electronic media about their own companies. Along with this clippings service, "equinet BrandON Investor Relations" also offers the evaluation of articles, videos and photos by presentation form and source, and according to positive and/or negative mentions.

Millions of announcements on the World Wide Web and in social media as well as capital market data are monitored and evaluated near-time. An algorithm differentiates between relevant and irrelevant data by integrating parameters such as author range, or the number of further recommendations, interactions and comments. Users also receive a daily report about their own companies' social media coverage. Around 65 clients of equinet Bank AG concurrently exploit the potential offered by this designated sponsoring 2.0 tool.

Kai Winkelmann, Head of Financial Markets at equinet Bank AG, commented on the launch of equinet BrandON Investor Relations Solutions: "We're extremely pleased to have integrated the interplay of designated sponsoring, investor relations and social media on the capital market into a single and unique tool. It allows us to offer our customers genuine added value. With our tool, investor relations officers can literally hear the grass growing in the social networks and the World Wide Web, which gives them an early heads-up on potential impacts on share price trends. With the "equinet BrandON Investor Relations", we're presenting an innovative tool that makes a significant contribution to loyalising customers to us long-term, and to winning new customers."

Michael Wilhelm, Management Board member of BrandON Media AG, elaborated on the benefit of equinet BrandON Investor Relations Solutions for investor relations and designated sponsoring through social intelligence: "Business activity is generally public. The fact that social networks and the World Wide Web generate publicity has now also been recognised by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in the US, for example, which meanwhile also accepts corporate announcements via Twitter. And since active shareholders are exploiting the public nature of social media to discuss and influence the activities of the world's largest companies, investor relations managers also need to take into account the impact of Internet-based public opinion on share prices."

About equinet Bank AG
equinet Bank AG, which is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, was founded in 1999, and regards itself as an "entrepreneur among bankers". It primarily assists medium-sized companies in financing and capital market matters, offering trading and sales services, as well as research products. Around 100 experienced investment bankers, securities traders, analysts and sales professionals develop and realise individual solutions.

About BrandON Media AG
BrandON Media AG is a leading provider of media monitoring and analysis systems with BI integration. BrandON's platform solution combines digitally available media sources within a dashboard in near-realtime. The company focuses on the automotive, airline, finance and consumer goods sectors.


German version