Kindred to ramp up Unibet marketing spend in Australia
CEO Henrik Tjärnström reveals plans to increase down-under advertising for Kindred’s Unibet brand in the operator's ongoing quest for market share
Kindred Group CEO Henrik Tjärnström has pledged to up marketing spend for the operator’s Unibet brand in Australia in a bid to increase market share.
Unibet is active in Australia, but is a relatively small player in the market when compared to the likes of Sportsbet, CrownBet, Ladbrokes and William Hill.
But Kindred’s global chief Tjärnström told The Australian Financial Review (AFR) that Unibet plans to ramp up ad spend to attract more customers during 2018: “Australia is a big market. It has a relatively high GDP per capita and there is a high propensity to gamble, so it is a very important market to us,” he said.
“We will be putting some great products in place here and while we have not really marketed as much as we could have, we are planning to do more in the coming year.”
Alex Westrell, Kindred’s head of communications, told EGR: “If we are to continue to grow our business in Australia faster than we are today, we need to invest in marketing.
“Nothing has been decided and no figures have been committed to.”
Much of the increased marketing activity around Unibet’s Kambi-powered sportsbook is likely to focus on the 2018 World Cup, which will act as a huge pull for Australian punters now their nation has qualified for the tournament.
However, revenue potential may be limited by the country’s regulatory blocks on in-play betting.
“Soccer is very important for the global company, particularly the live betting aspect,” Tjärnström told AFR.
“We have seen it is very popular with our customers and if it is not regulated, I think you will see people being pushed to unregulated markets in order to bet live.”
Kindred does not release its Australia results, but the country would be covered in the “other” markets section that contributed 2% of the group’s gross revenue of £196.3m for Q3.