Unibet readies UK sportsbook push
Operator has invested £3m in marketing campaign, while B2B arm Kambi is ready to debut its UK horse racing offering
Unibet has embarked on a significant marketing campaign as the operator begins a full-scale rollout of its UK-facing sportsbook offering, fully managed by its B2B subsidiary Kambi.
The £3m “summer of sport” advertising campaign, focused on the “armchair analysts” theme, will see the firm take a 30%+ share of voice on Sky Sports adverts around its three core sports of tennis, rugby and cricket. Head of UK product Ed Nicholson told eGaming Review the Unibet brand would be “on air in every major event in those sports from this Sunday until the end of the year”.
Unibet has signed up former Wimbledon champion Goran IvaniÅ¡eviÄ, former British and Irish Lions rugby player Gavin Hastings and former English cricket captain Sir Ian Botham as ambassadors and all three will feature on the campaign.
The push follows significant investment in developing a UK horse racing offering through Kambi, and Unibet chief executive Henrik Tjärnström (pictured) told eGR the UK focus is the product of prolonged investment following the acquisition of Australian operator Betchoice in February last year.
“Betchoice was a big stepping stone for us – we bought a business that had a strong racing heritage and that added another piece of the jigsaw for our product portfolio,” Tjärnström said.
“Now we have also been improving our cricket and rugby and other offerings to make sure we are able to address the UK market in a better way, and also to improve our platform to make it much more country-specific with fractional odds and other things to appeal to the UK punter.”
Tjärnström also said Kambi’s agreement with 888, announced last week, “benefits Unibet in being able to develop an even better product for the UK market”. The offering, which will go live under the 888sport brand, will be rolled out online and on mobile on 28 May.
“It’s definitely an upside as we will now have even more resources to reinvest in product development and get an even stronger product – having this strong competition is very good as it pushes us forward as well,” he said.
While 16% of Unibet’s revenues came from mobile in the operator’s most recent quarterly results – mobile’s contribution to sportsbook revenues is already “close to 40%”.
“We’re predominantly taking customers straight into the mobile platform and that’s really where we see the future,” he added.
“What has stopped us before is the lack of horse racing and greyhounds, as well as the fact that we have not done fractional odds before, but we feel that now we have a product that can compete effectively in the UK,” Kambi CEO Kristian Nylén said. He revealed that initial discussions began in autumn last year, and that the deal showed the B2B subsidiary had managed “to demonstrate that we clearly have the best product in the market”.
Kambi, Nylén said, is in “continuing discussions” with potential customers “both in the UK and in other parts of the world” but added that it was “difficult to say” when further deals were likely to be announced.
Henrik Tjärnström and Ed Nicholson were speaking to eGaming Review at the re-launch of Unibet in the UK where its ‘Unibet Summer of Sport’ ad campaign featuring Sir Ian Botham, Gavin Hastings & Goran IvaniÅ¡eviÄ was unveiled.