When good deeds are bad news

When Rangers unveiled their new home kit for 2023/24, it was accompanied by a press release that explained the sponsor’s branding on the front. And it probably needed to be, writes SBC

Leaders Editor MARTYN ELLIOTT.

While the large Unibet logo would be familiar to many football fans, the ‘Zero% Mission’ slogan underneath it probably meant little to anyone outside the gambling industry.

Is it promoting a climate change initiative or perhaps a video game?

Could anyone realistically expect the average Ibrox-going supporter, fuelled in equal measure by their love for Ally McCoist, annoyance at Celtic’s latest title win, and Tennent’s lager, to know that the mission in question is a safer gambling initiative?

Driving any kind of consumer awareness or engagement is just one of the multiple public relations challenges that Kindred Group’s journey towards zero ambition faces. Which is a shame, as the goal of reducing its revenue from harmful gambling to zero is an admirable one.

It’s also something that Kindred has embarked on for the right reasons, rather than just to seek positive press coverage. However, commentary in the press tends to help form people’s perceptions, so PR matters.

There’s a lot to like about the ‘Zero% Mission’ from a PR perspective. It’s a positive move that is definitely in the best interests of Kindred’s customers and demonstrates that the company has forward-thinking values.

Its quarterly progress reports should also be a good news story. They indicate that the company’s safer gambling interventions with high-risk players are working and that, at around 3%, the share of revenue from harmful play is significantly lower than the figures bandied about by those campaigning for tighter regulation of the industry.

This is where the PR challenges really kick in though, as once a gambling operator publicly admits it has a problem, everyone from social media bores to serious political campaigners want to have their say.

And they rarely say anything that the company’s leadership or investors want to hear.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Kindred’s laudable initiative actually gifts additional attack angles to critics, which may explain why many other major operators are reluctant to be as bullish about their equally commendable safer gambling ambitions and programmes.

Chief among those angles is the fact that Kindred’s aim of reducing revenue from harmful gambling to zero is clearly unachievable. There’s no vaccine rollout in the making for gambling addiction so, despite operators deploying a combination of cutting-edge technology and the industry’s best talent to improve player protection, it is inevitable that some harmful play will slip through.

As the failure of the mission is all but guaranteed, fulsome praise is unlikely. However, any mistakes - particularly those that lead to penalties from regulators - will attract an extra level of opprobrium, as Kindred has discovered.

So why not just beat a retreat and very quietly drop the promise? Aside from the fact that Kindred’s commitment to reducing problem gambling is genuine, the step back from such a high-profile pledge would soon be spotted and the admission that it cannot deal with the issue would be an even bigger PR nightmare.

What about going the other way and ramping up the publicity by, for example, putting the commitment on the front of a football shirt? That sort of approach tends to attract accusations of using good works to drive sales, which would be unfair in this case (but I understand the cynicism; it’s my first thought when I see Heineken’s educational drink-drive ads at F1 circuits).

It really is a no-win situation - apart from for those who will be helped as that 3% is pushed down towards 2% and possibly even lower.

All this probably sounds like I’m criticising Kindred, but that’s far from the case. I admire the fact that it has prioritised the moral imperative and is pulling out all the stops in an attempt to do the right thing.

But when even the praise sounds like criticism, there really is a problem.

Standing out from the crowd is difficult to do in the gambling industry, but with a focus on community, social media and star appeal, Roobet Co-Founder MATT DUEA and his team have demonstrated what is possible when you use your imagination.

Words by MARTYN ELLIOTT

When a story involves viral TikTok videos, cryptocurrencies, a worldfamous rapper, knockout punches and a gun-toting video game, you might expect it to be a full-on tabloid scandal.

Yet this one is far less salacious. It’s simply the tale of how all those elements have combined to form a stellar player engagement strategy that has made Roobet a favourite casino and sportsbook among Zillennials. Founded in 2018, but only really pushed as a serious enterprise from mid-2019, crypto-first operator has now taken in excess of 3.6 billion bets and seen its team grow from 10 to 136.

Speaking to SBC Leaders, Roobet’s disarmingly candid Co-Founder Matt Duea admits: “I’ll level with you.

We never expected Roobet to really amount to a blip on the radar, if I’m totally frank.”

Much of this success has been driven by a marketing strategy of building a community centred around entertainment, rather than establishing a solely transactional relationship with its players.

Duea says: “The internet’s a weird place to live and it’s all about being quirky and eye-catching. That’s a lot more work than I think people realise.

“We’re a club and we like to create things for our community that our community’s into. If we provide enough value to them, we know that the ones that bet will reward us with loyalty to the brand.”

The internet’s a weird place to live and it’s all about being quirky and eye-catching.

Going Viral

One of the key elements of that community building has been social media and specifically video content.

This focus has seen Roobet become a huge hit on TikTok, where posts using the brand’s hashtag have been viewed more than 440 million times, making it arguably the gambling industry’s biggest success story on the platform.

A self-effacing Duea says that he “fell into TikTok by happenstance”, rather than targeting it as a key promotional channel. That may be the case, but Roobet’s approach to the platform is one that established betting and gaming brands - or, in fact, any type of B2C brand - can learn from, because viral moments do not happen by chance.

In short, it’s all about choosing the right ageappropriate creators to partner with and then accepting that they know more about how to engage with an audience on TikTok than a corporate marketing team kicking about ideas in a meeting room does.

“The interesting thing about TikTok is there’s so much content on there now because of the fame of that platform and how it’s grown,” says Duea.

“What Roobet tries to do is work with these creators - influencers, celebrities and athletes - to try to make moments happen. And then capitalise on the excitement of those moments.”

THE WORLD’S FIRST CHIEF GANJAROO

Perhaps the most famous member of the Roobet community is rap superstar and NFT evangelist Snoop Dogg who, in keeping with the brand’s kangaroo-themed identity, became the company’s Chief Ganjaroo Officer earlier this year.

Roobet has since leveraged the partnership to create greater player engagement by ‘Snoopifying’ its popular original game Crash to create Snoop’s Hotbox.

Snoop may be an unconventional choice of brand ambassador, but Roobet is an unconventional company and, in many ways, he is the perfect fit.

Duea says: “Snoop’s an entertainer. He’s a performer. He connects with us and our community at a deep level.

“He’s a legend and he’s achieved incredible things, but I think our connection with him is that he understands the life of an artist.

“A lot of the people involved in Roobet like to create and we like to support creators. We like to work with people to make fun, goofy, weird content.

“And Snoop’s got that kangaroo streak to him, he’s got a little bit of that weird to him. He does things with his own Snoop flavour and I think that’s what really makes us sort of lean in with him.

“That’s why we were very excited to work with him.”

A Knockout Sporting Strategy

The yin to Snoop’s yang is Canelo Álvarez, the fourweight boxing world champion, who is also a Roobet brand ambassador. While Snoop is a creator, the Mexican pugilist is very much a destroyer, and that appeals to a different group.

“Canelo doesn’t need to be a content creator to stay relevant. He just needs to keep knocking people out,” says Duea. “He brings the betting audience. Casino is a whole different beast, but Canelo is definitely a sports person and Snoop’s more casino.”

Boxing is the most traditional sport to feature in Roobet’s promotional efforts, in part because its leadership team is not looking to take on the heritage sportsbook brands.

Perhaps more important in the thinking is how well Duea’s team knows its target audience. People who use crypto tend to favour other new and disruptive forces, and in the sporting world that means MMA and esports.

Roobet is now the UFC’s official social casino partner via its Roobet.fun free-to-play platform, and also produces a range of MMA podcasts with fighters including Alex Pereira, Charles Oliveira, Brandon Moreno and Marlon Vera.

In addition to helping to reach and engage with sports fans in Latin America, where top UFC fighters are superstars, the podcasts further build Roobet’s positioning as an entertainment brand, rather than a purely transactional operation.

“We’re willing to take the time and make the investments in things that we’re passionate about and are fundamentally fun things to do that connect with our values,” Duea explains.

“With these podcasts, we just like hearing the perspective of the people inside the sport. We enjoy giving them a platform to be viewed more as a human being and less as an action figure that stands in a ring and gets their face punched at.”

One of those fundamentally fun things that is indelibly in Roobet’s ethos is the CounterStrike video game series, which has become one of the world’s most watched and bet on esports.

The operator now stages the Roobet Cup, a big money CS:GO tournament, and organises the Roobet Arena, a matchmaking service for CS:GO enthusiasts looking for an opponent.

While this is largely another way to strengthen the connection with its community, it also provides a window on the company’s unique culture.

“CS:GO is a part of our roots,” says Duea. “A lot of the people at this company wouldn’t even know each other today if it wasn’t for that video game - we’ve spent a lot of time shooting each other in the face!”

Words by MARTYN ELLIOTT