Innovate to accumulate
With the UK's TV advertising clearance body setting limits of £200 on TV promotions, it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish brands by cash giveaways, says Mark Gristock, creative director at marketing business the Cowan Group. And with reload bonuses growing ever higher, egaming operators need a new route to riches.
OVER the last three months I’ve been working on the launch of a new bingo brand and a number of CRM and acquisition activities across the gaming sector.
What’s become clear is that, for an industry founded on innovation, we are in danger of overworking our trusted channels at the expense of profitability and success.
Look at the bingo and casino markets, and you’ll see an increasing desperation in terms of sign-up offers and reload bonuses.
With the UK’s TV advertising clearance organisation, Clearcast, setting limits of £150-£200 on the promotions that can be featured on TV, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish brands by bonuses and cash giveaways.
With reload bonuses growing ever higher, it’s clear that buying customers is not a profitable route to growth, drives down lifetime value and is no guarantee of brand loyalty.
But it’s not just the cash bonuses that are causing problems. There is a proliferation of increasingly conformist advertising campaigns, and a reluctance to shake the boat. Where one company leads, the others rush to follow; something that leads to increasing conformity and ever diminishing returns despite major investment on marketing spend.
As with bonuses, the amount that’s spent on a campaign seems to be the only indicator of success.
So we’re broadcasting homogenous offerings in similar ways without any thought of the impact on the audience or the industry.
The next obvious trend is to looking towards direct marketing-style promotions to differentiate the brand “ either through product giveaways or themed prizes. However, for sheer scale InterCasino has already moved the goalposts on this with their competition to win a trip to space “ surely the ultimate prize for men of my age group.
But if we can’t shoot for the stars (pun intended), and it’s too expensive to do ineffective cash-based offers, then we need to look beyond simplistic models of cause and effect.
If we don’t, we’ll continue to fight over the same customers using increasingly unprofitable activity – simply because we can track its effectiveness and we’re terrified of taking risks. Which will be good for no-one.