Cracking the code to an emerging gambling market has proven in the past to be the golden ticket. With the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, establishing a brand foothold in Asia, Africa and Latin America will be one of the stepping stones to help the gaming industry recover globally. Parimatch CMO Dmitry Belianin sat down with our own Becky Liggero Fontana to offer some insights on how brands can build a marketing strategy for emerging markets.
Understanding the role that brand building and being prepared to play the long game, is the key to success in any new emerging market. “Understanding your audience in an emerging market is key,” Belianin told us. “We do segmentation to ensure the right brand propositioning and positioning into the selected target segments. As for the emerging markets its very important to invest in the brand building to find the right channels to communicate your brand’s values.”
“My biggest tip is that you should find your own brand proposition before entering those markets to segment the market and to understand the channels. I’m a big fan of integrating marketing so it’s really important to have various channels combined at the same time. Be sure to concentrate people’s attention around your brand values,” Belianin said.
Belianin pointed out that even established industry brands like Parimatch can face the same challenges as the smaller industry players in emerging markets. “The number one challenge we face in emerging markets is payment providers,” he said. “If users experience issues with deposits or withdrawals they will try to find something else because if they can’t get their money back into their pocket quickly, they’ll eventually skip out on you.”
Belianin advised finding the right local partner and accessing quality local audience data are the key issues any brand will face in Asia, Africa or Latin America. “Having a partner with the local market understanding armed with local research is an advantage,” he said. “Sometimes in emerging markets, there is no such partner because those markets are brand new, and you have to find someone who is on Linkedin or Twitter. The number three challenge is proper localisation. Finding a balance between your globalised strategy and your localised strategy is one of the key issues that many companies face right now.”
In the full interview, Belianin goes onto explain how Parimatch are using the power of brand ambassadors like Connor McGregor and Mike Tyson to stand out in Brazil and the LATAM region. Subscribe to the CalvinAyre.com YouTube channel to see every interview we make as it goes up.
