Not Another Teen Movie
I saw the trailer of the new film 2012 (out worldwide on 13th November) and it reminded me of the humourless, grasping at straws franchise of films that parodied teen movies, rom coms, scary movies and dance films. These parodies took the premise that each genre of film was the same, just a different title, sometimes different actors and rarely new plots. For example, in a typical chick flick boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl have obstacles and conflicts to their new found love and split up only to reconcile in a nail-bitingly, tearful, romantic, silly comedic happy-ending of a predictable finale.
Hollywood can do that. It shouldn’t do that, because creativity should prevail, but it has the advantage of the public’s short attention span, the small exposure time that a film has at cinemas and the media’s obsession with promoting its films, actors and actress often at the expense of art and in favour of glamour and zelebrity.
Anyway, seeing the trailer for 2012 should have been exciting. After all, this film does have creativity: $202 million worth (even more than James Cameroon’s Titanic budget for the Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio blockbuster) for a feast of special effects never before seen. But instead it felt like attending an industry conference: different location, but with the same one-dimensional main characters and annoying bit-parters. Knowing that the director, Roland Emmerich, also directed Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow and produced Godzilla explained a lot. But does that mean it’s justified?
We, as consumers, are bombarded daily with product marketing, but there seems to be a fear of innovation. And where innovation is lacking, distinction is non-existent. So why in the gambling industry are sites so keen to be the same? Trawling through gambling sites, it’s difficult to find ones that stand out. As someone working in the industry, I can note subtle differences between offers, themes and brand. But is the player so savvy? I think we take it for granted that players understand the offers and brands presented to them.
I was at a house party of a Brazilian friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. He had a group of friends (in their early twenties) from Mauritius, but who now live in London, at the party. Apparently, there are a lot of them in London, in good jobs, with good disposable incomes and who love to gamble. The group, of four women and one guy, that I joined were already in a conversation of their visit a few nights back to a casino. Every one of them gambled not just at land based casinos but online too. I asked them about the sites they gambled at. They all said Ladbrokes, one added Betfair, another William Hill. Two of the girls commented that they only bet at Ladbrokes because it was easiest, they know the brand having seen it on the High Street; one stating she didn’t really understand the other sites, they looked the same and she wasn’t sure which one to trust.
This last point is the important one. A person who loves to bet (like these young Mauritians) needs some guidance, some understanding that there is a continual dialogue with the brand they choose (here is something that working more closely with affiliates can help with, but I’ll cover that another time). This is not a throw away two and a half hours at the cinema, this is a permanency in the same way that our choice of soft drink brand, the car we drive or the bars we drink in are. They permeate deep into our lives and we want them to exist in a stable manner. This cannot happen if, as a gambler, we are overwhelmed with an underwhelming choice that only drives us to choose the safe option.
So what are brands doing to distinguish themselves? One new brand just launched Bingon comes to mind as an example. I know Max de Muro, the CEO of Mediterranean Gaming, the company that launched it. He’s passionate about social networking so it did not surprise me to read that the new site is full of all the social networking features you’d expect from the likes of Facebook. Taking a peek at its bright shiny and non-pink colours, the site looks fresh and friendly. And indeed it is clear that it aims to increase stickiness and encourage loyalty by providing players with an environment to interact with each other, set up profiles, update their status and make friends.
Max and his colleagues aren’t the first to have such features on their site, but it is refreshing to see a site rely not just on superficial branding features, but launch with the aim to be fresh and differentiate itself from the outset. They are using the existence of these Web 2.0 features heavily in their marketing message – though they should be mindful that the average person does not use or necessarily understand such jargon. The added bonus that its differentiation not only offers greater touch points with the player in which the company can interact with them, but provides the basis of alternative loyalty and customer retention tools. I would like to see more sites peeping above the parapet in an attempt to be different and catch the consumer’s attention. It’s just a shame the same can’t be said for cinema. Though…. it makes no sense to see 2012 on DVD – a waste of the special effects – damn it, I think I might just have to see it at the cinema after all!
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