Austrian Grand Prix sponsor “myworld”: What lies behind this?

Even if myWorld/Eyetime/Lyoness/Lyconet etc. is being renamed on a regular basis, the product remains the same with changed or amended sets of agreements.

“Speedweek” used to be a weekly issued motorsport magazine and was converted to a pure online medium, which inter alia contains a database of more than 70 racing series.

Already in August 2019, they published an article headlined “Lyoness – an obscure new partner of Dorna”.

Since then, myWorld/Eyetime etc. has not become less obscure. Far from it!

The following article by Oliver Feldtweg of SPEEDWEEK puts it succinctly!

By Oliver Feldtweg – 16 August 2019 11:12 a.m.

At the Austrian Grand Prix, we met again another “naming rights” sponsor of Dorna, since the company “myworld” or “myWorldsolutions” has bought the naming rights for the motorcycle GP in Styria. Whatever this company concretely produces, renders, offers or sells can only be guessed with plenty of imagination.

Behind the company name, there are the same contemporaries as once were behind the company Lyoness which had bought banner advertisements at the Grand Prix in Spielberg in 2016. In 2017, “MotoGP cashback” bought the naming rights for the Austrian Grand Prix, in 2018 it was “eyetime” and this year it is the turn of “myworld”.

Whoever wants to look behind the scenes of this illustrious business model, will find an obscure type of shopping community. Members receive 3 or 5 percent “cashback” per transaction, as long as enough new members are recruited. Critics speak of a snowball system.

In some European countries like Switzerland, there had been legal proceedings, it was said that there was a diffuse company construct. The business cards of the top employees showed quite different company addresses in different countries. Surprisingly, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of all companies from Lyoness to eyetime to myworld is always the same – it is Hubert Freidl. In 2003, he founded Lyoness International AG in Buchs, Switzerland. Operational business activities are primarily conducted from Austria. In 2018, the company was renamed to myworld.

In 2016, Lyoness announced that it was operating in 47 countries and had more than 130,000 partner companies, 13 million customers and 250,000 points of acceptance worldwide. These statements are not verifiable.

The obscure business model lead to numerous actions and investigations against the company. In Norway, Lyoness respectively Cashback was banned because it was classified as “illegal pyramid scheme”. Also in Italy, the antitrust authority stated that Lyoness was a pyramid scheme and the company was sentenced to a fine of 3.2 million Euros.

In 2011, was a trial in Austria. In this context too, there was the allegation of “financial malversations” in the form of an “illegal profit forecast system” respectively of a “pyramidal built snowball system”, but the case was closed. Lyoness calls his business model a service company.At the request of the Austrian Press Agency, the company founded by Hubert Freidl stated, that myWorld Solutions provided its “know-how for various international companies and organisations”. One was offering solutions in the fields of product development, product management, IT, marketing, PR and communication as well as fan and customer loyalty.

As a Grand Prix name sponsor of the Motorcycle-GP 2019 in Styria, myworld also bought the tickets of a complete tribune with approx. 3,000 seats in the finish curve, but most of the time it was quite unfrequented.

Already a year ago, the marketing specialists of Dorna were wondering about the surprisingly small number of VIP guests of the GP sponsor.

But invoices are paid promptly by this cashback companies with changing names. In Formula 1, this ominous shopping community also was a GP name sponsor at Spielberg. On this occasion, the cashback company also did not appear very pompously, it only put up an inflatable tent and two rollups. Such an appearance was unworthy of a Formula 1 title sponsor, so it was to be heard. Because such a deal costs about 2.5 million.

But “myworld” is also annual partner of the Red-Bull-Ring racing track in Styria. Although no bustling marketing crew can be spotted and the backgrounds of the business model remain obscure, “myworld” spends ludicrous piles of money for the promotion of the company name.