In the early 80s, a chap by the name of Jay Conrad Levinson was busy reinvigorating the way businesses marketed – his creations included the Marlboro Man. In the process, he coined the term “guerrilla marketing,” which quite frankly drove a revolution in business marketing, advertising, and PR.
Levinson passed away last year, but over the past three decades, he put his talents and genius in to morphing his guerrilla marketing skills to include technology and social media. In essence, he taught marketers and businesses that there was always new ways to find new customers.
So here we go. In the spirit of Levinson, the crystal ball is out and I’m going to have a stroll in to the possible ways and means in which iGaming operators can go hunting for new audiences in the next couple of years, in an attempt to broaden their marketing reach whilst keeping to sensible budgets.
Geek Chic – New Audience Communities
If you’ve yet to do so, check out Google Ingress. At first glance, you may feel like I’ve sent you to a geek’s paradise. Well, give it a go. It’s Google’s augmented reality “game” that sees players fight (virtually) to control locations (real) around the world. Fights take place at “portals” geographically near to players, selected using GPS, meaning one actually has to be stood in, or next to locations selected. The choice of locations selected is largely down to the participants. These tend to be local landmarks, but more and more businesses are getting involved. Within months, I envisage battlegrounds being set to control Ladbrokes and William Hill stores up and down the UK, accompanied by location-activated push messaging to reward players for their efforts to take over a branch, creating unique opportunities for brands from enabling experiences (experience marketing) to joining with fans and consumers in the creation of content!
Someone will master Video content. Maybe
Even Paddy Power’s strategy on Vine and Snapchat has been incoherent, with barely a semblance of relevant brand engagement taking place. This is most likely down to the limitations of the apps themselves, not remotely designed as advertising platforms. Instead, the true success of Vine, in particular, has been the ambassadorial roles leading “Viners” play in brand marketing. Remarkably, this is not something iGaming operators have yet to leap upon as a viable PR channel.
New concepts, such as shoppable video were being tested by Google in 2013, and platforms such as WireWax and Kiosked are gathering pace. These tools allow for dynamic, personalised content to be generated using geo-targeting and service-provider data to display relevant prices, promotions, product information and more within the video. Perfect for localised, more targeted sporting events, for example. With TV ad budgets set to decline as point of consumption taxes are invoked, this could be a great way to both reuse and increasingly contextualise video creative.
Targeting, Retargeting to all that Big Data
Data is not something we lack in iGaming. Prediction: quantity will finally get the quality of targeting and retargeting it deserves. It’s the obvious presently underused combat technique to tax. Marked improvements in data cleansing and segmentation technology are being spearheaded by betting software powerhouse BetGenius in iGaming and their DSP (demand-side platform) offering. Expect them to grow massively, and competition to rise.
You’ve heard of Big Data right? Look for more in depth targeting options from social networks are opening up far more intelligent means of targeting users advertisers to target users to more permissible click through and conversion rates.
On top of that, convergence technology is making giant steps forward from a customer acquisition perspective. Technologies being driven by Exponential and I-Behaviour now allow for the targeting of potential customers online based on their offline shopping habits.
Like all “good” clairvoyants, I’ve given you just enough here for some truth to unfold. Come back to me in six months, pay your $5 and I’ll clear the rest up.
