gambling ads are they just misunderstood are we missing the real problem that they're just not inventive enough would the public opinion be swayed if more followed paddy power's latest example or is it too late all this and more on the gi huddle [Music] the global gaming awards are powered by gambling insider in association with g2e and lead partner bet construct spanning the entire gaming industry both land-based and digital the categories recognize operators suppliers innovation and responsibility the nomination process is designed to ensure the short list represents the industry's finest by featuring both self nominations and an independent specialist nomination panel these companies are then showcased in the glossy shortlist magazine celebrating the industry's best and distributed at g2e las vegas independent leading game executives including many of the most recognizable names in the industry cast their votes in each category the awards climax at a gala luncheon during g2e las vegas attended by hundreds of industry leading executives for more information visit globalgamingawards.com [Music] hello and please mark this day in your calendar as it marks the very first time you will have heard the gi huddle we're delighted you can join us for our very first edition with myself david cook and three other hot shots from the gambling insider editorial team here with me are north london's prodigal son tim paul hello everyone sporting a charming northern irish accent it's matthew enterby hello there and the pride of the north nathan joyce hello so to bring you on to uh the main premise of this very first uh discussion for the gi huddle what really got us thinking here um at gambling insider hq recently was when we saw uh paddy powers advert about how loyalty is dead and how they used roderick giggs brother of former manchester united and wales footballer ryan and that's without going into the specific detail of what the joke behind that advert was we'll assume that you've seen him we'll assume that you know the backstory um but it's really just uh got us thinking about whether if more gambling ads went down this route would they cause so much controversy um would the general attitude public perception to them be quite different so i'll leave the first question really open to the floor and asking are adverts like this um generally a good or bad thing for the industry i think they're a good thing for the industry i think it's a good idea to have like a different kind of offering i think in across any industry the best ads are the ones that stand out for the the storyline as such not really the content that they're shouting at you but it's about the story it's about ryan giggs's brother walking through and you know having all these little links to what happened um but and i think it's across the same across any industry if the ad stands good on its own then it's valuable to the audience and valuable to the operator as a result um easy to agree with that and on top of that i'd say from a regulatory perspective this advert barely mentions i think in one edition of the advert it doesn't at all mention the words gamble casino bets or you know bet now odds here this offer it's very subtle and people who like to bash the industry might not necessarily even spot this as a gambling advert so i think in terms of reducing the pressure on the industry this kind of approach is the perfect one whether paddy power no they may have a gold mine there from a regulatory perspective uh we don't know but um i hope they they catch on to that yeah so um david said about these adverts being good but i don't think we've seen an advert like this before um this advert is so niche uh i think paddy power absolutely nailed it but paddy power unknown for doing quite rogue adverts but i don't think we've seen anything quite like this and i don't think we will see anything like it going into the future yeah just follow up on that point nathan about never having seen anything like this before because i think that's exactly what the issue is of seeing all these gaming efforts that we with so many of them it's like we have seen this before and particularly you know we see lots of celebrity endorsement in other cases as well like we see ladbrokes using various celebrities at the moment like chris sakabusi and james buckley and evening bet victor now using harry redknapp as well in their adverts um and i actually mentioned if gambling adverts did vary in their style a bit more um would they have caused such an outcry and has it is it actually more a case of people have got sick of them rather than people being worried about any effect they might have on any viewer i do i do think that that's a fair point but i think as well it's the the frequency of these ads that quite often that that irks people you know they they they see so many ads coming through and it's like it just seems like the same i guess it relates in a sense you know it's the same same message being shouted at them again and again and again these these are a different odds or you know something random from harry redknapp that doesn't really make a lot of sense um but i just think it's the frequency so even in the us we had similar reports of when um draftkings and faneuil tried to really flood the market people felt overwhelmed with just the number of these ads that are coming their way and it just becomes quite exhausting to have to listen to it and sit through it all again i'm not like i'm you know matt's best friend or anything but um i'm basically agreeing with him once again his in terms of frequency yeah it's hard to say no to less adverts is better and certainly less is more in terms of a quality advert i think i think looking away from the quality of the adverts it's the amount of times we see it so we expect a lot of these adverts to be quite cheesy and corny um especially the lamb brooks ones with dizzy rascal and james buckley but it's the sheer amount of times you see it in between advert breaks that's when it became become quite annoying um so i i feel maybe we we sort of expect these adverts to be a little bit cheesy rather than just doing the offers which can be boring but the more we see it i think that's when we decided to go a bit more of a hate for these particular adverts if i was to ask you guys uh just off the top of your head if i was to say uh you know betting play now what comes to mind ray winston ray winston that's the thing so and that's an example where bet365 have used so many in play i had so many half-time ads that it maybe necessarily created a negative perception straight away but it has really been through that repetition but then that also makes me think does everyone have to look at paddy power and think let's be like them or or the issue then is how does an operator that's not paddy power create that brand identity without frustrating the general consumer who's so fed up with seeing all the adverts all the time so on that point i think it's um i think it's interesting to use at the paddy power example because sure paddy power are known for these great adverts for these catchy adverts and they've got they've had some bad ones like anyone but they've had some some roots some real gems down the years but this particular advert this particular idea as nathan said it's it's a one of a kind it was uh it was really out there it's not necessarily a paddy power advert paddy power have done it but anyone could have done it we've got betwe paying sachi and saatchi for their new campaign the hunch um there's no reason these sort of multi-million marketing companies and campaigns can't be as good as this there's no reason um they can't be creative they can't be innovative and at the same time like my earlier point uh less in your face so regulators and the general public and perhaps gambling naysayers can't give the industry such a hammering you're going back to the point of bet365 i mean we're talking here that adverts have to be creative but more stylish in a way but 365 have built such a big reputation they can get away with just showing ray winston and the odds they know that they're always going to get customers and more more customers come to them as a result they don't need to be out there and they don't need to be flashy they know what they are they're one of the biggest in the industry so for them just to use ray winston and everybody knows straight away if you're if you're in a pub and you can't even hear the tv you know straight away what it is and you're expecting there to be odds and then that can cause a debate between friends about that particular game or that particular market so 365 have built up a reputation and have nailed it and there's no real need for them to try and be corny and cheesy and maybe ladbrokes and coral need to step away from that and maybe take a bit more of a professional sort of stance with with their adverts because yeah i mean at the end of the day the point of an ad is brand recognition right so regardless of whether it's good or bad people are recognizing this is a bad 365 out isn't it well that's the thing um i mean if i was to to ask you guys you know have you seen anybody despite the paddy power advert being perhaps controversial in its nature have you heard anybody complaining about the ad or do you know of any person that would have made a complaint about the ad or any kind of negative feedback to an ad like that potentially ryan geeks anyone who's been in a similar situation to ryan giggs and perhaps but then it's like you know if we we saw all the ads being like that and we didn't really see about the odds and kind of the products that the gambling operators want to to advertise would that work at the same time or do does it really have to be about finding that balance between telling people what it is or just simply doing something that people are going to remember um and and do something that makes them remember a brand name i'm not sure that if someone like labrix or coral um use less odds and use less bet now that'll be such a bad thing for them because okay you have in play examples where harry kane to score nexus three to one and the whole of england's watching that's maybe slightly different and i'm sure everyone in this room can appreciate certain situations of certain needs but the other day it was 12 p.m and i saw dizzy rastel come on the screen for ladbrokes and i think it was advertising either casino or bingo now does a bingo audience really need to see dizzy rascal i think i think that's potentially a a waste of marketing budget you know i'm not not necessarily an expert in that in that area but uh also i've seen harry redknapp recently on bet victor harry redknapp's everyone's favorite person at the moment but do i need to see him getting locked out and calling sandra sandra that's not going to make me bet it's not i don't think it'd make many people bet so i think actually you could have you could have less of that and i don't think it would necessarily harm operators um bet 365 like you say that that's a good one they don't need to be calling in and they do exactly what they need to do again do they need to do it when when a match isn't on probably not you know every situation has its has its needs on the flip side of that and looking at it from a different angle lab rooks we say is cheesy but then we could eat all of us here could roll off who's actually in those adverts and how much they're annoying us so in a way it sort of sticks in your brain a little bit more um so maybe that is a positive effect they're going for maybe not reverse psychology or anything like that but at the end of the day we can describe in detail their adverts um and who's in it and at the end of the day betting companies want you to remember who they are and so you can argue that that actually working for them yeah i think um one of the things that really makes the paddy power ad stand out is that it's it fits into like the current public perception of gambling you know it doesn't it doesn't sort of as tim said earlier it doesn't scream gambling out gambling it doesn't say all the stats and statistics all the way through it it's a more subtle nuanced way of saying you know we are paddy power and this is you know here's our loyalty program um and i think that i think that with the current situation with regulations or developing towards ads i think it's important for operators to be pushing out more of these kinds because it's you know you're still getting your your name out there people will recognize it and associate it with what you want them to but at the same time they're not hammering down that same message that we've heard again and again and campaign and charity groups might say will lead to problem gambling in issues like that further down the line so you say for paddy power 2 or any other sort of operators to produce adverts like that but that advert was so nice and it was such a one-off how do actually operators potentially go about that and how do they pick a different angle so say we're saying for example ladbrokes and coral are so cheesy and they need to make it a bit more professional or give it a bit more edge like the paddy pal rodriguez advert but how do they do that when that is such a niche example i don't know yeah no to be honest that's a that's the best answer i give right now that's that's that's what their responsibility is responsibility is at this point i think and um the more the sort of public is against gambling the more important it is for these operators to come up with a clever way of saying here we are this is our business but don't worry we're not overwhelming you with the same thing that you've heard for the last decade or however long um yeah no i totally understand where you're coming from there but it's uh i don't have the answer well i use another example of an ad which seemed to me to generally go down quite well a couple of years ago it was when bet victor brought there advert where they said something along the lines of we don't know what to do for our gambling ad how about we just copy another typical gambling ad and then it cuts people talking about bet and play acabanzo lad lad all this kind of thing um let's assume it was perhaps a thinly veiled dig at the ladbroke's life adverts as an example is there maybe too much of a misconception particularly in this country just looking at the uk as to what the average better is and how to target that particular group i think i think there certainly is with certain operators and it's a great example you've made there because that victor advert we still remember it today because it stood out and it was okay it was um it wasn't necessarily the most creative it was just mocking its rivals but the most recent victory i've seen is is harry redknapp and um it's the exact opposite and they've gone backwards so sort of in answer to your point but also an answer to nathan's earlier question if you saw a really good um if ronaldo sees a really good free kick and it's the best free kick he's ever seen he's still going to try and score more free kicks you know that palliative power may be the best one we've ever seen but i don't think operators should use that as an excuse to put out anything especially when it's such a precocious time where the more adverts you see them like like matthew says the more bad reaction there could be so the so you brought up there the victor advert from a couple of years ago which stands out but since then paddy power have replicated that um for their online bingo site they actually got i think it was a washed up eastenders character and they were like ricky ricky yes yeah yeah they got ricky and they were like well how we're going to advertise bingo and again the audience there they were trying to pick on was picking just trashy lights with the washed up star so paddy power sort of saying there they knew what their audience were they weren't high stakers or anything like that but that's something which sticks in my memory for that as well so but it really felt that when it comes to talking about gambling advertising debating about gambling advertising in the uk that really seemed to become a hot topic at the back end of last year we had the fob t issue and it felt like that was the next step to talk about the ads it does feel to me that since the self-imposed advertising ban coming in next season um where you know you won't be able to advertise uh in play pre-watershed with the exception of horse racing um do we actually think that despite any kind of new ideas the operating companies do we actually think this whole issue might actually die down a little bit as a result i think with this ban i think i think operators should just go a bit more healthy with it at this point if you can well in a couple years time when you can pick and choose what exactly you want so you can actually cancel out all adverts completely with the sky packages and stuff i think those which are allowed you saw it the people who are happy to see them it's giving you the freedom to just go and do what you want so maybe we can see more from paddy power from lab brooks and stuff like that i don't think it has to i don't think it will have too much of effect on people yeah i think that um whistle to whistle ban is kind of like a the operators all teaming up and offering the sacrifice to the to the public who are public and politicians and whoever else as well who are quite against gambling at the moment and um i think that it's not it's not weak but everything's done online now right that's where that's where so much is coming from that's where so much spending is going and i think that that's really that's they know that's what's important so they can say we can remove a lot of ads from the tv and it's probably not gonna well it will affect things but in the long run how much will it change things yeah exactly you're exactly right there um the thing is social media has now sort of taken over how many people do watch live tv nowadays it's netflix amazon prime so and there hasn't really been a ban on social media yet so operators can really target that with images live videos stuff like that so it appears that operators may not actually be that bothered if a band comes in because they can target social media which is where the digital age is now going i think you both rate some really good points there and certainly we have we've had mims davis recently praising efforts from the industry and i think that's mainly because of the whistled whistle ban um but what we with what nathan said in terms of um going helpful ever that's certainly an idea in terms of we've had a consultant tell us that a gambling insider recently and if certain people are always going to criticize gambling advertising maybe yeah they should just go for it but uh just with with the climate in europe at the moment with the with the bands i mean italy obviously there's a there's a complete gambling advertising ban in belgium they've recently looked at things um in terms of advertising it's just it you know it's it's a bit of an interesting time in terms of whether you whether you really go for it or not um but i think one something we've we've all talked about before is is definitely certain situations and targeting certain adverts at certain times so like nathan says if you're at the pub watching football or if you're watching sky sports news you'll probably expect a betting advert but if it's the world cup when the whole nation's watching people might have been shocked to see so many which they certainly were uh which is ridiculous in itself um on itv and bbc and things like that well online was mentioned there and i think uh it was the study from gamble aware that showed that it was uh i think 1.7 billion pounds spent on marketing i think with 2017 but a large chunk of that being online and then when you've got the tv ads it's like you know we think about what happened with sky bet recently and uh having a complaint upheld against them because apparently they were showing that an increased knowledge would um entice people to to bet more as as ridiculous as that sounds and i've got to me if i was richard flint at skybet i would be so drained of energy and something like that because you know he does so much then they're going to different seminars and speaking at industry events about how responsible gambling's so important and then they still get reprimanded so it actually makes me think comparing that to the type of attitude that paddy power has taken towards advertising at certain times it does actually make you think they might as well just go on the attack might and they in their advertising are people just going to complain about anything regardless of actually how responsible you tried to be 100 i think that it gives the operators just a bit more of a license of freedom like you said if they're trying to jump through hoops to make sure that they stay in line and sort of appease everybody then and it still hasn't worked then why not sort of take more of a paddy power approach um operators always going to get judged if and if if an operator does something which is classed as funny people always going to say it's a rip-off or a spin-off of paddy power anyway so yeah like i said if they if they're just going to get marked down all the time and especially with the sky bet one then they might as well just sort of go and do what they want to do and get their name out there as best as they can yeah i think it was what two complaints that came in that were upheld and that was it this ad can no longer be shown in its current format and it's uh yeah that sounds a bit crazy to be honest how many people will have seen that ad and maybe had not the best reaction to it but still thought uh whatever it's just it's just an ad right like turn over but these two people riding in taking the time to complain is really sort of you have drive driven own so yeah there is that possibility that they could sort of just push and continue and just say you know what people are always going to complain so let's just carry on but but i don't know i think with the way everything's developing at the moment to be to do that it's just going to really ramp up that sort of negative attention in a way sort of if skybet were to continue and just push out those same kind of ads again and again and again there would be some mainstream publication that would be saying skybet has 10 10 ads banned in the last month or something like that and then that would just be another another smear essentially on there on how they look yeah that's a very touched upon it there are two complaints i mean i'm not sure what other industry would receive two complaints from an advert and they receive so much backlash and so much sort of public attention for it yeah i mean you you guys make solid points and and the the thing is we're discussing here but there's so many industry debates you go to ice you go to um all g2e all over the world and people will be especially in europe people will be talking about advertising and there's no necessarily right answer and there will be those who say yeah let's let's go for it and they'll be there to say let's be more cautious but at the end of the day i just think with with the pressure at the moment with uh i know nathan you said that advertising is never going to be banned here and i i'd agree if i i would agree from you from with you from a logical point of view but as we've seen sometimes regulators politicians in the uk aren't necessarily that logical and you should just never put anything off the table like you say two complaints for a skype ad and it's banned so you know it's it's it's just that that time if it was 10 years ago i think you could say yes go for it and i think a lot of operators did which is part of the reason why we're here today so while while gambling is still legal in this country if advertising was to become illegal i don't know how i could possibly react to that without swearing a lot because that's that's just crazy isn't it i mean if you're allowed to gamble why is advertising that thing not allowed of course restrictions in place certain times of the day that's all good but if if the act itself is legal to make advertising illegal just i can't even that's yeah we'll stop him there before he explodes um but just as a point to sum up where do we see uh the overall image of gambling industry advertising um heading over the next four or five years i'll start with you nathan i think they're just going to carry on doing what they're doing but i think there's going to be a huge focus on social media um gambling will never be banned in the uk it's too big of an industry to millions and billions of pounds go into it yeah as far as i'm aware it'll move on to social media and then people will probably want to attack that instead but we'll move on to that at a later date yeah i just think at this point in time operators just be smart with your advertising this is why i love the paddy power advert so much because i think i i well as i say i could be wrong there could be one complaint and that could get it banned but i really don't think it's is in your face as um as other adverts and i don't know whether paddy power realizes actually that it's it's you know hit a pot of gold here um and i think other operators should should certainly not try and copy them because we've already discussed they've they've nailed their brand it brand image and branding but i think other operators should be cautious but but be clever be creative don't just throw out your harry redknapps and your dizzy rascals because well you'll have at least one person who'll be happier sitting right here if you don't so yeah i know both both great points there i think everything's moving online i think the targeting abilities of ads online is far greater and that will really benefit operators really i think that you know things like the paddy power ad are the way to go subtle approaches nuanced approaches and really just and just don't just don't repeat it all too much that's what i think that's what really grinds people down well i'm afraid that's all we've got time for today but these three gentlemen don't just talk a good game they write first-class analysis too so uh please keep checking in to gamblinginsider.com and our gi friday newsletter plus our march april magazine is out now too we hope you enjoyed our first huddle see you again soon [Music]