‘Play. It’s why we’re here’ – Could you explain the thinking behind this tagline?
Put simply, we see Sky Vegas’ role as providing moments of play. It’s why we’re here for our players and for the wider casino market. We’re extremely proud of our content mix and entertainment heritage, and believe we excel in providing individual moments, whether that’s with the latest big-brand slot title or the newest live casino experience.
The tagline is designed to bring our brand purpose and expertise to life, while also summing up the new creative approach centred on celebrating moments of play in the everyday.
Why have you gone away from your usual Sky Vegas advertising?
The move away from our established creative approach is the culmination of extensive customer research and a reflection of our new brand ambition. The new approach starts to address broader and well-established challenges we believe the category faces when it comes to developing better relationships with customers.
We enjoyed several years of success with the King of the Unexpected, but the approach began to feel limiting when it came to communicating beyond promotions, and giving players clear and distinct reasons to choose Sky Vegas over the competition at a brand level. We recognised that the category was awash with brand ambassadors vying for attention and other recurrent themes in advertising that didn’t really give players a reason to sit up and take notice of any brand.
There was also a strong sense that the established advertising techniques didn’t reflect players’ real experiences with brands. An almost single-minded focus on winning within the category didn’t tell the whole emotional story of why players play. And the world of hype and exaggeration that ambassadors brought to life was far removed from the reality of where and how our players play. We believe the lack of relatability is limiting brands’ opportunity to build meaningful and robust relationships with players, beyond the result of a spin. The new Sky Vegas approach is the first step in demonstrating greater empathy with players, provides scope to focus on more than just the win and is more grounded in the reality of why and how players play.
What were the most interesting points from your customer research on the matter?
With our Sky heritage, our natural inclination has always been to try and make experiences better for players, so we took the opportunity to understand what ‘better’ meant for them today. The results were clear; they were tired of the same old behaviours from brands in our space, were cynical about promotions and felt all casinos were the same. The hype and exaggeration that existed within advertising was supposed to create excitement but was undermining trust.
To begin to deliver better experiences for our players, the starting point was how we communicate through advertising. However, we know advertising is just one area where we can improve and differentiate. The new brand approach, of which the new creative is just a part, gives us a platform at a business level to look at every aspect of our players’ interaction with us and ask ourselves ‘how can we make this better?’ That means we’ll be using insight across the entire player journey to improve their experience at every opportunity, so the research will be ongoing.
How do you think this campaign will build up trust of customers towards casinos?
At its most basic, we set out to reflect players’ real experiences with us in our advertising approach. By showing greater empathy, we’re laying the foundations for greater trust Research revealed that it’s in the unremarkable moments in their day that players look forward to playing, preferring to play for excitement rather than only for the chance of big wins. We aren’t just focused on the win, but all the feelings of entertainment that players get from online casinos: jeopardy, anticipation, connection and even losing. That’s what they experience with us, so it’s only right that we reflect that in our comms. We’re using real-world, everyday scenarios as metaphors for what Sky Vegas delivers to players – big entertainment in small moments – as a means of establishing that we understand them and the way they play.
What more needs to be done by online casinos to show they are trustworthy?
Trust is earned, so the challenge extends far beyond advertising. Drivers of mistrust are so deeply engrained in the minds of players that brands will need to work hard to demonstrate they’re deserving of trust. That means greater levels of transparency, a sustained and systemic focus on player safety and a move away from purely transactional relationships towards ones that are built on fulfilling the needs of players beyond the result of a spin or the next promotion.
As a category, we’ve been faced with the same challenges for many years. Players tend to use multiple operators to get a sense of value. Brands have predominantly focused on transactional value as a means of acquiring and retaining players, which we believe has only compounded the trust challenge and fuelled promiscuity. It’s a promotional paradox. Players have become so accustomed to promotions and free spins that they’re now a hygiene factor but at the same time see them as cynical ploys to draw them in.
Players are savvy and need to feel valued and understood beyond the transaction. As a category, we have a responsibility to players to answer more of their needs and work harder to earn their trust, through the things we do as well as the things we give away.
Most gambling adverts’ focus is of course on the win, but do you think your new campaign might see a change in this going forward?
I’m hopeful that there will be a step-change in how brands communicate in the near future, but ultimately it’s up to brands to decide what’s right for them. More than ever though, the category needs to address the challenges we face, whether that’s at a regulatory level, perceptions of the games and experiences we provide or the lack of trust that exists among our playerbase. To do so, we need to reflect on the category norms and established ways of doing things, and ask ourselves whether they’re solving the challenge or adding to it. If every brand has the same focus, standards will raise and the entire category will benefit.
Fundamentally, we all have a responsibility to players to provide a safe environment where they can enjoy the small moments of big entertainment they’re looking for. Advertising is at the front line of communicating with players and sets the tone of what players can expect from an operator. We’re confident the new approach from Sky Vegas begins to show that we’ve listened to what players want. Of course there will always be a role for promotions in our space, but we believe we’ve laid the foundations for better, more trusting relationships with players; by simply talking to them in a relatable way that’s more true to their everyday experiences.
Is there a worry that making the campaign related to everyday life could raise concerns with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) when it comes to problem gambling and underage players?
This isn’t something we’re concerned about. Player safety is paramount, and at Sky Betting and Gaming it’s our primary focus in every aspect of our business, none more so than with decisions we’ve made around the new creative approach. Our ads are tested throughout development and our Compliance team are scrupulous in ensuring that our communications adhere to all ASA guidance and fall well within the threshold it stipulates.
Nothing has changed in terms of who we are aiming to reach with the new approach, it’s simply the way we’re communicating the experience at Sky Vegas that has matured. We believe the new approach is actually a more responsible way of communicating as it’s more grounded in real experiences and focuses on all aspects of playing, rather than on simply winning, which currently the industry largely does. By representing a more accurate portrayal of the outcome of games, we’re being more responsible. Our new ads all feature a moment of drama that ultimately resolves to a state of normality. It’s this return to normality we feel is a more responsible articulation of how our games should be enjoyed. In addition to the new ‘favourite games’ campaign, we’re also launching a new safer gambling ad encouraging players to set a deposit limit, which we know is a crucial and effective step in ensuring players play at a level they’re comfortable with. Additional safer gambling messages are also planned for later this year. The new creative approach provides us a platform to communicate these vital messages in a more relatable way, normalising the conversation around safer gambling, which is key to creating a safer environment for all players.
