Q&A: Evoke CEO on taking “decisive decisions” on transformation journey

Evoke CEO Per Widerström isn’t shying away from the challenge in front of him. Since coming into the top job at the William Hill and 888 parent company last October, he has overseen a rebrand, a host of fresh faces in the senior leadership team and the value creation plan he hopes will push the business forward.

And while H1 2024 was “disappointing”, according to the Swede, as revenue slipped 2% and adjusted EBITDA slumped 26%, optimism remains abound at the evoke offices. Gains made across gaming as well as a strong start to Q3 mean that Widerström is confident of reaching the 5% to 9% revenue growth for the second half of the year

Revenue is expected to land between £874m and £904m for H2, up against £829m in the same period last year, while the marketing ratio should decline from H1’s 25% to around 18%.

Along with the brand proposition reset, driven by new commercial teams in place, Widerström explains to EGR that while the journey will take time, he is confident of turning the ship.

EGR: We have seen a stronger performance across gaming in the first six months of the year versus sports betting. Can you give a bit more colour on this and if direct to casino acquisition is up?

Per Widerström (PW): In order to drive value in a responsible way, we need to do both in terms of the acquiring directly into the casino as well as cross-sell.

We do see very good traction when it comes online gaming. I think it goes back to being very clear about the proposition, being very clear about the customer cohorts that we would like to address and being more optimised when it comes to the bonusing proposition we have and how we communicate that.

From an online game perspective, we see very good encouraging progress. If we look at it from a retail gaming perspective, we see tremendous opportunities for a step change in the underlying gaming revenue from our gaming cabinets.

I arrived and we had to take the bold, decisive decision to pivot from proprietary retail gaming cabinets. Starting in Q4 this year, we are having a substantial changeover of upgrading retail cabinets across our retail estate

I just want to spend a bit of time on sports. And looking particularly at William Hill in the UK, we have been absolutely focused on making sure that our customer promise going forward – since I started and in particular with the new commercial team in operation – is very clear, very distinct.

Previously it was quite erratic due to the short-term changes to the sports proposition in the UK. So we’re changing that with the new team, with the new customer proposition, the way we are taking pricing position, the way we are actually being very targeted when it comes to the bonusing – it’s a very different go-to-market strategy.

We foresee that will have good traction as well, and we saw that not least in terms of Euro 2024. So, we have a good plan going forward.

EGR: On those customer proposition changes in sports, the earnings report used the word “confusing” for customers in H2 last year. Can you expand on that?

PW: We obviously are tracking and following up in essence what the customers are telling us and it’s hugely important for us to take into account what customers are saying. There were some short-term changes being made both in terms of the pricing as well as the bonusing, as the bet types being promoted in order to mitigate some of the headwinds coming in when it came to the regulatory compliance measures.

So obviously, the question then became what does William Hill stand for when it comes to sports proposition? On top of that, it was very clear that the overrounds were being addressed in the short term to address the short-term profitability focus. These are some of the examples of what did happen last year, and another thing was that the best odd guarantees [being removed].

If you look at what we are doing now, we are very clear to our William Hill customers that when it comes to sports, we go in now for the new football season with our top-class accumulator versus competition across the Premier League in the most popular games. William Hill UK is back to being the destination when it comes to having clear, consistent value for our punters.

EGR: Why is it the gaming propositions seemingly landed and performed well while sports betting promotions didn’t fare as well?

PW: What I think is important here is that we have changed the leadership. That’s number one; hugely important. If we look at the UK now, [we have] the new commercial team in place, starting with Mark Kemp (CCO) in March, that has further cascaded down in the team with a new commercial approach.

As I mentioned on sports, [it’s about being] consistent when it comes to the messaging, the pricing proposition and the bonusing.

We have a much more targeted [approach] towards our mid- and high-value customers and also we have a great upgraded bet builder product. Twenty per cent of the staking in Euro 2024 was related to bet builders, and there’s more things to come on sports. We know what didn’t work before in terms of the promotions and the propositions.

On gaming, we have seen a step change since having the new commercial team and the way we are now also changing the proposition once again. We are more sophisticated when it comes to market promotions in terms of bonuses. We are more sophisticated in terms of how we addressed the right customer cohorts. And, with the new commercial team, that modus operandi for how we work 24/7 has also changed dramatically.

EGR: Can you expand on the closure of the Live 5 business which William Hill bought in February 2022 for £3.6m?

PW: To start with, it is not part of the £30m optimisation costs. When I came in, we did an overhaul, and we are still doing that for the whole business because it is a fundamental transformation.

When we looked gaming part of retail, we are definitely underrepresented versus the market share we have on sports. It also became evident that our retail cabinets we have today are more than 10 years’ old.

On top of that, the tests and the data that was provided to me showed that the intention of being differentiated when it comes to proprietary in-house retail gaming didn’t stack up. From a customer experience perspective and likewise from a valuation perspective, it didn’t stack up. So, we had to make a clear decision.

We are not going to proceed further with the proprietary platform on the gaming cabinets. And of course, Live 5 was brought in to make that happen. Live 5 has done a great job; the point, though, is that strategically we are not pursuing in-house gaming cabinets, so that is the underlying direction.

We’re going to drive substantial value through the third party, with Inspired Gaming cabinets coming into play in Q4 and Q1 2025.

EGR: How are you shaping up for H2 and how confident are you on reaching your set targets?

PW: There’s a lot to address in this transformation. So, I think for us, to restate that the H1 results we communicated is in line with the trading update. The current trading is in line with the growth commitments of 5% to 9%, which is in essence a step change from what this company has done before.

When we look at H2, we know there’s a lot to do, but we are absolutely committed to that. This is a transformation journey. I’ve had the opportunity to do this before, but every journey, every reset is unique. So, I’m looking forward to sharing further how we are embarking this journey going forward.