In Summer 2016 eBay Inc. bought the Spanish tickets marketplace Ticketbis. The deal has been finalised and now they’re rebranded. Henceforth it will be known as StubHub.es, which will be familiar to you as eBay’s ticketing marketplace. At the moment though you have the choice to choose between the two brands as websites when you go to Stubhub.es. Presumably that will change in due course.
StubHub president Scott Cutler says: “StubHub is making solid progress in our goal to integrate Ticketbis into our platform, and to give consumers access to the world’s largest catalog of live events. This phase marks a significant step in introducing Ticketbis customers to the StubHub brand, and extending to them access to the performers, artists, and athletes they love, no matter where they live, or where they want to travel.”
It’s a risky business rebranding website names, especially into other languages. It’s difficult to know whether Ticketbis resonates more than StubHub to a Spanish audience but stub with reference to tickets clearly had a predominantly english language reference.
And it’s vital to recall when Play.com rebranded to Rakuten in the UK. Other issues aside, that rebranding did rather tarnish and damage its own (not too shabby) brand awareness.
That said, StubHub as a ticket business is a crucial brand for eBay Inc. and is a serious profit and growth section of the business. So they’re keen to build that brand equity. We’ll see how it pans out.
