UK-listed betting exchange Betfair has launched a new campaign that involved the company giving away over £10k to random streetwalkers – that is, random people walking on the street, not prostitutes, which are traditionally selected with much greater care.
The new Super Rich Cash Machine marketing pitch is intended to spotlight Betfair’s Price Rush feature, which compares wagers placed with the company’s fixed-odds sportsbook against those placed with Betfair’s more popular exchange product and (if warranted) adjusts the odds in the punter’s favor.
In case you didn’t catch it, ‘Super Rich’ is an anagram of ‘Price Rush’ just as ‘Betfair’ is an anagram of ‘Rat Beif’ or ‘Fat Bier’, only the latter of which we believe was actually on the luncheon menu during the company’s recent AGM.
The campaign promo (viewable below) features what appears to be an automatic banking machine set up on a street in Tooting in South London, with signage alerting passersby to the presence of a Super Rich Cash Machine offering “Free Cash Withdrawals.” A few daring citizens stick their noses into the ramshackle alcove containing the machine, and some even more daring customers actually insert their cards into the machine, which duly spits out a few £20 notes.
Some can’t believe their luck and immediately alert other streetwalkers as to the free bounty that awaits them inside. Others cast furtive glances behind them, as if expecting the ghost of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman to appear in his police uniform, clap them on the shoulder and bellow “What’s all this then?”
Betfair brand product manager Andy Holmes assured The Drum that the Super Rich machine hadn’t read any info from customers’ bank cards. The concept was to illustrate the extra value Price Rush offered Betfair punters at no cost to themselves. In June, Betfair CEO Breon Corcoran said over 500k punters had seen their bets ‘rushed’ since the product launched in February, which had helped punters realize an additional 24% in wagering value.
