Product differentiation and listening to the needs of customers are of upmost importance if operators in the online gambling space wish to succeed in an overly-saturated marketplace. There is always risk involved when trying something new, but if you’re able to get it right, the rewards are endless.
Codeta is an example of an online gambling operator that has taken a chance and is doing things differently. I learned this first-hand when I attended a Codeta VIP affiliate event in Stockholm several years ago, a 48 hour adventure designed to educate affiliates on the concept behind the innovative online casino while having a little fun celebrating its launch.
Codeta’s CMO, Joakim Amadeus Olsson, joined the operator this spring after having worked the past six years as a strategy consultant with a focus on identifying future growth and defining meaningful future roles for brands.
“The red thread in what I’ve been doing has been to help good companies be more relevant for their core customers in transformative and challenging markets. The winners have been those who best understand the needs of their customer and are bold enough to embrace the shifting requirements. That’s why I found Codeta so interesting”, he shared.
The Codeta team’s unique focus on serious players and developing their skills, a group some operators tend to neglect, is one of the reasons why Olsson decided to come on board.
“The players are there to have a good time and feel that they continue to improve their skills”, Olsson explained.
“There is a player quote that really stuck with me: ‘The online casino-world is all about shallow and childish slots, cluttered with promotions thrown in my face. There are thousands of distractions that prevent me from focusing on my game.’ It’s my belief that Codeta can be a force for change in this”, he added.
As part of their journey for fulfilling the best environment for serious players, Codeta recently launched “Skill Score™”, a feature allowing players to evaluate their performance and placing them on a leaderboard.
“The power of the Skill Score™ lays in its simplicity. It is simple enough to compare between players regardless of betting sizes or preference for different live games. Yet, it’s advanced enough to capture the two most important components of gaming in the ability to win big and win over and over”, Olsson revealed.
“The goal has been to create something for advanced players that also can help new players. Players in our community often express a desire to either challenge themselves and keep track of their own improvements or compare their skill against others. The Skill Score™ enables both desires”, he added.
Before launching this new feature, extensive consumer research revealed a gap in the market for more performance-oriented gambling, the core focus behind the Codeta brand.
“Skill Score™ is building on the drivers we identified already then but complemented with a focused brand optimizer from Lynxeye which quantifies how various initiatives impacts brand and business in order to understand what core players will find most relevant and unique”, he explained.
While the online gambling industry as a whole is making steps towards more innovation, Olsson believes there are still too many generic and “unserious” operators in our space and as a result, the more serious operators will suffer industry reputation consequences.
“I am however optimistic moving forward. I believe that the unserious, fortune-seeking operators will be squeezed between new legislation and increased consumer awareness about their fishy methods. An even stronger industry trend will be the demand for more unique players experiences. Operators will no longer be able to just provide a memorable name and funny picture with the expectations that people will visit them again”, he said.
“We operators will need to provide great content and a clear reason to come back. I believe this will be a strong catalyst in shaking up this fragmented market where the irrelevant operators will have to make space for those who best know their customers and manage to deliver on their expectations”, Olsson added.
In order to achieve Olsson’s greater customer relevance vision at Codeta, the launch of Skill Score™ is only the first stop on the roadmap and the team’s future plans involve additional modules within the feature.
“People will be able to compare themselves in other time spans and within specific games. They will also receive richer data explaining the performance. The idea to start there is to create a more solid understanding about your skill history”, he said.
“Next step will be to provide tools and data that helps you develop your game going forward and thereafter integrate the social aspect of the experience. It might sound like these features are laying far into the future but you will be surprised…”, Olsson added.
