20 minute read
Marketing
by SBC Global
THE UNCONVENTIONAL RISE OF WORLD SPORTS NETWORK (WSN)
THE SPOTLIGHT HAS BEEN
on GiG’s flagship affiliate site World Sports Network (WSN) for some time now. Now present in 10 US states, the site is quickly becoming a contender as one of the up-and-coming players within the US market
With WSN.com, GiG Media has taken an unconventional go-tomarket approach by focusing nationwide and investing in highly engaging content mediums such as video and podcasts with the sole purpose of building a strong brand asset that the company can capitalise on in the future.
WSN was described as one of the company's key operational highlights in GiG’s Q3 financial report released earlier this month. The journey to becoming one of the stars for GiG Media, said the company, is an insightful story of hard work, determination and one which has maintained a key focus on sustainable growth.
It has taken a couple of years and a lot of expertise to bring the site to its current level, which is continuously strengthening its position within the US market, allowing GiG to expand its global footprint and stay on path as an influential player within the betting industry.
SBC Leaders spoke to GiG Media’s Managing Director Jonas Warrer and Milorad Matejic, Director of SEO & Publishing, to find out where it all started and how they shaped the journey of WSN from a somewhat
Jonas Warrer, GiG Media’s Managing Director
neglected, but valuable three letter domain to the rising star of GiG’s media and publishing business.
Warrer said: “We bought WSN. com from Gambling.com in 2013 with a company called Rebel Penguin that GiG Media later acquired. We had a dream about building a site to compete with espn.com and sportsline. com, dreaming big while being a small company.
“We had to borrow money to make
the payment and then ended up being occupied with several other initiatives after the transaction. Without having a clear plan for the domain at that point, we never doubted that the domain would be an asset when the US opened up, and so we pushed for the acquisition. Sometimes you have got to just jump at the chances offered to you.”
The chances for success were enhanced in October 2017 when GiG acquired Copenhagen based affiliate business, Rebel Penguin ApS. At that time, GIG had completed several acquisitions that placed the company's Media arm amongst the bigger players in the industry. The USA had also been the talk of the sports betting industry for many years based on the speculation of market watchers who anticipated the repeal of PASPA.
When the US Supreme Court repealed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in May 2018, the doors to a legalised sports betting industry were opened. This marked the start of a gold rush within the iGaming industry, which subsequently resulted in an abundance of mergers and acquisitions.
Milorad Matejic, Director of SEO & Publishing
SEO guru Matejic joined Rebel Penguin in 2016 as Head of SEO and describes deciding to use the domain to target the US market as a eureka moment.
“When I first joined, WSN had not been worked on for years,” he said. “The site wasn’t even indexed in Google. For me, it was like winning a major jackpot when I first discovered it.
At the time, we considered developing it into a global sports site, such as ESPN, due to it having ‘World’ in its name. We were busy with other pressing issues and the project never
got off the ground, but it was a nice dream and something that remained a topic of conversation between us.
“Together, Jonas and I worked on a strategy for WSN and had somewhat of a eureka moment when we decided to pivot it to the US market, at the time when regulation was about to take place in New Jersey. It made perfect sense.
“WSN sounded like an American news network and we were confident the brand would resonate with the American public. However, we had no idea that it would become what it is today within such a short timeframe.”
GiG relaunched the first version
of the current design of WSN in September 2019 under the radar with a small, but dedicated, team and a careful strategy, allowing it to test and perfect the site so that they could identify clear gaps in the market for where they could compete.
Matejic added: “It has taken a lot of work and continuous improvement to get to where we are today. But everything we’ve done has contributed
to WSN becoming a recognisable brand. From the very start we had to be realistic and were very aware that it wasn’t logical for us to try and compete with some of the specialty sites already running. Instead, we decided to combine information about sports events with accurate and reliable tools about sports betting in regulated states.
“This approach requires a lot of resources, but even more patience. We weren’t looking for quick wins, but had a vision of becoming a household name in the long-term when the majority of US states legalise sports betting.
“In a landscape dominated by huge American media networks, consistently appearing at the top of Google’s search results and in their top stories section is a testament to how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. This is a huge achievement for us, showcasing the combined skills and determination of the team we have at GiG Media.”
Matejic also placed emphasis on the website's podcast series, describing it as one of the areas that adds value to the brand.
“The podcast series Krack Wins, hosted by sports betting personality Bill Krackomberger, is an example of our long-term content strategy that was designed with the aim of building the brand and keeping users
engaged,” he explained.
The latest affiliate licence to be obtained for WSN was in Michigan making daily picks, predictions, odds and other betting related content available in 10 states, a number which is certain to increase.
Warrer added: “We are going to stay in the tailwind of the US regulation and will keep on surfing the second wave of sports legalisation. The dream is no longer to become the next ESPN but to become a top rated site for any US sports bettors.
“We are confident that eventually all states will open up, and when they do WSN.com will be right behind them, providing tailored organic sports betting content to each and everyone.”
Conquering the American sports
betting market and being competitive in rankings with major news networks seems like an impossible task, but through hard work and determination, GiG Media has succeeded in growing its up and coming sports betting sites in the States. •
ODDSCHECKER BREAKS DOWN 2019/20 PREMIER LEAGUE CAMPAIGN
‘UNEXPECTED’ IS ARGUABLY ONE OF THE BUZZWORDS that comes to mind when discussing the 2019/20 Premier League season, with bookmakers and fans surprised at league outcomes, the length of the season and the performance of some of the league’s biggest teams
Delivering a keynote speech on day two of the Betting on Sports Europe – Digital, James Tippett, Commercial Executive at Oddschecker, gave delegates some insight into some of the ‘record breaking’ figures that came about during the 2019/20 season.
The 2019/20 campaign, which lasted a total of 352 days, broke several records; the season was the longestever in Premier League history.
Reigning champions Liverpool claimed their first top flight title in 30 years, which came as a surprise to some bookmakers, and Jamie Vardy’s Golden Boot also caused a stir in the market. The Leicester City striker finished the season on a grand total of 23 goals, bagging his only hat-trick of the campaign at St Mary’s.
Discussing some of the data
collected by Oddschecker, Tippett explained: “The 2019/20 campaign was the longest season in history, with 352 days between the first and last game. It was a season that no one really expected for many reasons – one being the coronavirus outbreak which ultimately affected the length of the season. Even the outcomes of the leagues at the end of the season were fairly unexpected!”
Most notably, the so-called ‘big six’ underperformed last campaign, victorious only 52.9% of the time; the lowest percentage since Leicester’s title winning year in 2015/16.
And unexpectedly, “naïve” Norwich City - who shocked bookmakers by beating Manchester City in September but went on to finish rock bottom - ranked eighth in the profit tables. This calculates the amount of profit you would have made if you had placed
£10 on a team to win every one of their matches.
Wolverhampton Wanderers topped this table (£158.70), with Tippett suggesting bookmakers “underestimated” the West Midlands club, whereas Brighton - who only managed nine wins across the campaign - were bottom on -£154.60 (but narrowly escaped relegation).
He also talked through some of the “key narratives to emerge” last year: “Liverpool actually won the title with seven games to spare which is the earliest win in terms of matches in English top flight history so that’s a very impressive achievement. I’m sure there are lots of Liverpool fans out there buzzing with that!
“Jamie Vardy’s pre-season odds were 16/1. There was a whole cohort
of players ahead of him; he’s in his 30s now. Leicester’s 9-0 away win against Southampton incidentally was the largest ever away win in top flight history so another record there.
“The pre-season odds of Norwich, Watford and Bournemouth being the three relegated teams were 72/1. Another interesting stat is that Bournemouth were the first ever team to concede 60-plus goals in five consecutive Premier League seasons.”
During the 2019/20 campaign, Tippett noted that Oddschecker recorded a 12% increase in affiliate registrations, 24% more bets placed via Oddschecker on the Premier League, and an 82% boost to the total of Premier League bets placed via the Oddschecker app.
He went on to explain why he believes the “one-stop shop betting experience” has had such positive results during the lockdown, when many bookmakers have struggled:
“The general growth of Oddschecker last season might be put down to the fact that with coronavirus, a lot of
betting shops were closed and we’re seeing a migration from retail shops to online bookmakers so Oddschecker is a beneficiary of that.”
Inevitably, punters opted to bet online as opposed to visiting a retail shop, due to the pandemic. Data showed that “competitive” Unibet were the best priced bookmaker across the duration of the season (102.5% average overround), with Betfair providing the best winning accumulator value (average 37.046/1).
Even though we’re only in gameweek four (at the time of writing) of the 2020/21 campaign, the race has already begun for who will become the best priced operator in terms of most clicks and best prices.
Bet365 have thus far dominated the clickshare table, retaining their top spot for the third year running despite
a +2% decrease (19.9% to 17.6%) from the 2019/20 season.
Even with the small sample size, it is striking to see William Hill in a close second with 16.0%, up from 7.0% in fifth place across the last campaign. Sky Bet, therefore, dropped from second to third, even after seeing a 3.7% increase in the number of clicks.
“Clickshare is a really good thing
to look at. It’s the most basic demonstrator of which bookmakers are capturing the attention of the Oddschecker user base or the punters that use Oddschecker,” Tippett justified.
“There are many things that obviously influence how likely someone is to bet on a set bookmaker but for Oddschecker a very highranking variable in that will be price.” THE CORONAVIRUS BREAK HAS INFLUENCED OVERROUNDS WITH THE AVERAGE JUMPING TO 105.2% (GAMEWEEK 4 OF 2020/21) FROM 104.0% (PRE-LOCKDOWN 2019/20)
He continued: “The coronavirus outbreak was always going to be an important time for the return of Premier League football, giving operators the chance to capture market share. Punters were likely to be presented with a choice on which bookmakers to bet with upon returning – it was likely that they hadn’t bet in a while.
“The bookmakers which gained market share were able to do so just by pricing generously. They saw value in that by gaining clickshare afterwards, attracting punters’ attention – which I’m sure they will use to retain those customers for this season and beyond.”
The data shows that the coronavirus break has influenced the overrounds with the average jumping to 105.2% (for gameweek 4 of 2020/21) from 104.0% (pre-lockdown 2019/20).
SportNation has delivered the largest increase (up 2.1% from last season), while Paddy Power offered the widest pricing margins for the first four weeks of this season (107.1%). Interestingly, Unibet was one of the only bookmakers to have decreased their margins.
Continuing to look ahead to likely 2020/21 outcomes (again, from the time of writing), Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side are odds-on to win the league for a third time under the Spaniard (6/4), and newlypromoted Fulham are early favourites for relegation (3/10).
According to Oddschecker, Ole Gunnar Solskjær will be the first to leave his post as manager of Manchester United after a 6-1 defeat to rivals Tottenham Hotspur (2/1), and Scott Parker could follow suit at Fulham (3/1) after an early flurry of defeats.
Meanwhile, Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne looks a prime candidate to be crowned the PFA’s Player of the Year, whilst the bookmakers have Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah at 4/1 to usurp Vardy as the Premier League’s top scorer.
And finally, Red Devils’ starlet Mason Greenwood could still make Gareth Southgate’s England squad for the upcoming 2021 European Championships (9/2), despite being dismissed by the Three Lions boss for breaking quarantine protocols after making his international debut in the Nations League. •
FOR MANY YEARS NOW, gambling has successfully adopted marketing techniques seen across other industries. Inevitably, though, the pandemic has posed new questions about social responsibility. So, are we setting the right standards?
During the ‘Thin Line Between Marketing and Enticement’ panel at Betting of Sports Europe - Digital, Tom Galanis, Managing Director at TAG Media, insisted that public trust is ‘waning’ and the industry is under pressure to raise its standards in social responsibility.
Moderating the discussion, which was sponsored by Karamba, Galanis noted: “Public trust in the online gambling industry is very much waning, particularly in the UK market. The industry is under pressure to raise its standards in social responsibility with a particular focus on the very broad category of marketing.
“This industry has long since used value propositions focusing on bonus lead acquisitions and retention marketing campaigns, delivered predominantly by performance marketing channels and VIP loyalty programmes often towing the line of affected marketing with accusations of enticing customers to gamble.”
Joining Galanis was Vedran Karaman, Global Director of Performance Marketing at Superbet, Neil Banbury, General Manager UK at Kindred Group, Petros Troullinos, Head of Marketing Operations at Kaizen Gaming, and Vasiliki Panousi, Manager of EU Affairs at EGBA.
Karaman highlighted the issues within Romania and Central Europe, where he believes the industry is witnessing similar distrust within the online market: “When you look at how people react to the adverts, when people are contacting customer service and the comments on social media it’s quite similar.
“Sweden is a good example of the newly regulated market which brought a huge negativity because you are now in people’s private space. Before
THE INDUSTRY IS UNDER PRESSURE TO RAISE TO RAISE ITS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY STANDARDS WITH A PARTICULAR FOCUS ON THE VERY BROAD CATEGORY OF MARKETING
the market was regulated, you had adverts on different programmes and display placements. But now that it's regulated, you have adverts in their private feeds, in their Snapchats and their Facebook and when it appears there they are becoming upset and annoyed.”
Switching focus back to the UK market, Galanis shared: “My experience from living in the UK is that public trust has never been lower in online gambling and online gambling operators."
Banbury echoed Galanis’ view, pointing out that the UK betting industry has ‘tipped over’ in terms of public consciousness: “I think it’s a reflection of the fact that gambling has been part of a normal narrative in the UK for a long time. "It’s been a heavy advertiser after 9pm. From a casino perspective, generally every digital channel has been open and it’s been something that as the market has grown and more firms have wanted to get involved in the UK they’ve seen it as an opportunity for growth. It’s led to more brands wanting to do more advertising and I think it’s just generally got to a point where it’s almost tipped over in terms of the public's conscious of it all.
“Whilst it remains highly engaged in activity there remains huge participation in online gambling. It’s clearly something that people in the UK like to do. I think we’ve got to a point now that it’s pretty clear that they don’t necessarily like to see the amount of advertising.
Tom Galanis, Managing Director at TAG Media
Vedran Karaman, Global Director of Performance Marketing at Superbet
Neil Banbury, General Manager UK at Kindred Group
“I often see here that there’s something that needs to happen around the quantity of advertising that’s happening, and there’s been some steps in that direction with the whistle to whistle ban, but I think as well we need to try and address the quality of advertising as it’s been very ‘shouty’ and it’s been very ‘ladish’ for some brands.
“I think we need to move to something that’s a little bit more sustainable, both in terms of the way the product is promoted but also customers don’t want you shouting at them, so if you want to be successful in the marketing I think the tone needs to evolve.”
The panel then went on to analyse the new regulations being introduced in the Greek market, with Troullinos stating the regulatory framework is ‘strict’ in terms of marketing techniques and communications.
“The time is excellent with the new regulation in the Greek market,” he said. “Now we’re moving from the interim stage to a fully transparent regulated and structural entertainment context that every serious company that is operating in Greece will benefit from. The new regulation was much anticipated and this is something that we will welcome at this point.”
The session then veered towards companies responding to the global pandemic with Galanis emphasising that putting positive social responsibility messages out into the public is more ‘achievable’ through brands and above line marketing where, he stated, there is more ‘control’. Yet, he stressed that ‘in the more important acquisition channels out there, broadly performance marketing but mainly affiliates, it’s less easy to do that’.
Galanis then asked the panel to discuss what they are doing to try to avoid enticing customers and sticking more to traditional marketing communication.
WE’RE MOVING FROM THE INTERIM STAGE TO A FULLY TRANSPARENT REGULATED CONTEXT THAT EVERY SERIOUS COMPANY OPERATING IN GREECE WILL BENEFIT FROM
Highlighting actions that Superbet took in the Romanian market, Karaman noted: “Basically what we do is we find a sports niche market and not just push the offer but promote it in a nice way. Other things that I think is a huge importance in that sense is to really start working very closely with a product and the product is key to where the whole industry is going. To be able to promote something that is not just ‘we’ll push the money to you’.”
Winding down the session, the panel looked at VIP programmes and if there is a need to take a different approach while also looking at the tobacco and alcohol industries and asking what lessons can be learned following the media and political onslaught to marketing.
Banbury added: “Ultimately VIP programmes are a hot topic at the moment. I think the industry needs to evolve its approach in that area. There's so much more information available and I think customers are increasingly understanding that when there’s questions to ask about affordability or source of wealth.
“It’s important from my perspective that we retain the ability to manage
Vasiliki Panousi, Manager of EU Affairs at EGBA
Petros Troullinos, Head of Marketing Operations at Kaizen Gaming
accounts that want to spend at higher levels I think blanket limits is something that could be very damaging, both from an industry perspective but also from the perspective of ensuring that people are supported in their gambling activities, certainly when that becomes to be a higher risk.
“I think it’s crucial that we continue to maintain close relationships with customers spending large amounts of money but equally the approach does need to evolve, and is evolving, and the more information we get about customers the more success we’ll have in a move towards the situation where there is no money being made that is harmful to an individual.”
Concluding the session, Panousi expressed her distaste to the comparison of gambling to alcohol and tobacco, exclaiming: “I personally dislike it when the gambling industry is compared to alcohol and tobacco
I PERSONALLY DISLIKE IT WHEN THE GAMBLING INDUSTRY IS COMPARED TO ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE CIGARETTE IS HARMFUL FOR YOUR HEALTH
because every single cigarette is harmful for your health while we actually sell entertainment and there is a lot of evidence that proves the vast majority of players do not have any gambling problems at all.
“I think when it comes to marketing tobacco has lost a bit of its game but we can take a lot of ideas from the alcohol industry. The alcohol industry, like the food industry which has issues with fatty unhealthy foods, has joined the self regulatory club and done it in a smart way. Not only have they agreed to apply some rules themselves but they are very strict and consistent when it comes to monitoring and enforcing them.
“In my opinion, we have a good case here. We have an example to follow. We just need to be unified and tell our story to the rest of the world who are not familiar with what we do in a successful way. I think self-regulation is a tool for the industry to move forward.” •
