Ladbrokes Coral Q&A: Rock brands

With a combined history of over 220 years and around 3,500 licensed betting offices, Ladbrokes and Coral are in the enviable position of being firmly-entrenched betting brands and household names in UK. Nevertheless, these two multi-channel betting giants, which were devoured by acquisition-hungry GVC Holdings in a deal worth as much as £4bn (completed in March), couldn’t be accused of resting on their laurels when it comes to marketing and brand recognition.

This summer, to coincide with the betting bonanza that is the World Cup, a dual-pronged marketing campaign was unleashed with each brand enlisting the services of two contrasting celebrities. For Ladbrokes, it was octogenarian actor and presenter Brian Blessed OBE dressed as a Cossack riding on the back of a bear into a British pub.

Armchair fans’ speakers are probably still reverberating to the sound of his unmistakable baritone voice.

Meanwhile, Coral’s campaign – ‘Don’t bet silly, bet savvy’­ – was fronted by US comedian and actor Danny McBride in which he plays foam hand-wearing Sports Rodstein, the biggest sports fan but not necessarily the savviest. Both Ladbrokes and Coral’s ads were certainly distinctive, although the Magic Sign’s marketing creative, and the involvement of Blessed, did divide opinion on Twitter, as Alexis Zamboglou, the Gibraltar-based marketing director for Ladbrokes Coral Group, soon discovered. For a philosophical Zamboglou, it’s “harmless banter” and about evoking a response from audiences.

EGR Marketing: The campaign #BrianAndTheBear was certainly a standout TV ad during the World Cup. How did you come up the ad, get Brian Blessed involved and make it appear as if he rode into a pub on a brown bear’s back?

Alexis Zamboglou: The World Cup is a cathartic event worldwide for sports fans and, in particular as we saw in the UK, for English fans. Such a huge event required a creative which was equally as epic, emotionally engaging and entertaining. During the four weeks of the World Cup, the volume of advertising noise is turned up to maximum, so the ability to compete on this level requires an idea that is different and uniquely distinct.

And what could be more creatively unique than an 82-year-old theatre actor dressed as a Cossack, riding through a traditional British pub on the back of a Russian bear. The Ladbrokes brand is fun, entertaining and a part of the fabric of UK sports, so we needed a personality that could match the grandeur, and Brian Blessed – as well as Boris the Bear – were the perfect dual casting.  At the age of 82, the energy and charisma Brian brought to our World Cup campaign really allowed the Ladbrokes brand virtues to shine through.

The production of the ad, which was carried out in Liverpool through creative agency Cravens, aimed to superimpose Brian Blessed inside real-life green screen footage of the bear. As you can imagine, it was a very complicated and precise creative process to create the visualisation of Brian riding a bear, but the director, Damien O’Donnell, and the Cravens guys did an unbelievable job.

EGR Marketing: You posted a screenshot on LinkedIn taken from Twitter after someone criticised the advert and called for the c*** who came up with it to be sacked. You laughed it off but how do you deal with negative feedback like that?

AZ: The true fear for marketers is indifference – so evoking a response is the first KPI of our campaigns, whether that’s emotional or rational. The sentiment analysis for the new Ladbrokes and Coral campaigns in June definitely doesn’t suggest indifference from audiences, which is a great starting point.

My view is there is no such thing as negative feedback; every response is valid as it’s just a natural and human reaction to your advertising from an existing or potential customer. Following Twitter reaction to our adverts when they air has become my favourite couch activity, as it’s a good litmus test of people’s spontaneous reaction. That’s how I discovered the Tweet calling for my sacking following a Ladbrokes ad slot on ITV, which actually was harmless banter!

 EGR Marketing: Some on social media praised the ad, yet others slated it. How thick does your skin need to be to work in marketing for a bookmaker?

AZ: Working in marketing across any vertical requires a thick skin, as our campaigns, ideas and creative output are really precious to us. Telling a marketer their campaign is terrible is akin to calling their baby ugly. In saying that, everybody has an opinion on advertising and lots of people will either love or hate a campaign, no matter how good the creator thinks it is. The Tango Orange campaign in 1992 – ‘You know when you’ve been Tango’d’ – is still highly recalled in 2018 and in true marketing style, a lot of people both loved and hated that set of ads.

 EGR Marketing: Turning to Coral, can you tell us about the marketing for Coral involving Danny McBride accompanied by the slogan, ‘Don’t bet silly, bet savvy’?

AZ: There are some great examples of how brands have adopted unlikely ambassadors with the aim of forcing a reappraisal of their position. In the example of Coors Light, this brand forced a reappraisal of their image by using an unlikely Jean-Claude Van Damme in a cut-off denim shirt announcing the quality of their beer on top of the Rocky Mountains.

The Coral brand required rejuvenation and a renewed ‘sit up and notice’ factor, which a Hollywood actor like Danny McBride can help bring. Working with creative agency Alpha Century, we were acutely aware that our ads weren’t just competing with other betting brands, but actually competing with share of voice against Netflix, Facebook, Twitter and the entertainment programming which adverts sit around.

For this reason, we aimed to begin telling the story of Coral in a way that was interesting and allowed us to hold people’s attention, not forgetting that betting is inherently a sports entertainment product – so injecting a heavy dose of humour into our overall message for the brand.

During the casting process, we went through an exhaustive list of actors that we felt suited the requirements list for our campaign but chose Danny McBride because of his demographic appeal and comedic genius shown in Pineapple Express and Vice Principals. The internal teams and Alpha Century have done a fantastic job in allowing Coral to modernise its image and appeal to new audiences.

As part of the creative process, we also wanted to challenge the use of colour and reshape visually what Coral represented, leading to greater focus on our silk colours yellow, green and red. The silks have been part of our logo for quite a long time but are a hidden gem in unlocking a really distinct image for Coral.

Danny McBride and Alexis Zamboglou

EGR Marketing: How did both brands perform with their marketing campaigns and how have they managed to be heard above all the noise this summer?

AZ: The World Cup has been a real stimulant for the industry and for interest and passion around the English team. Across a lot of verticals, the success of England throughout the tournament led to much higher consumer confidence and purchasing trends across most industries, with our brands also benefiting from this uplift.

It is difficult to compete with all this noise, but it’s really important to have a clear, consistent marketing strategy which has easily digestible marketing messages. We sometimes over-indulge in how much attention customers actually pay to our advertising, but, in reality, most research suggests that consumers will only absorb very small snippets of the brand story you’re trying to tell.

So, during an incredibly noisy period of time like the World Cup, you need to keep your core marketing messages simple, consistent and working on a platform of unique and distinctive creative campaigns. Such is the size and nature of the World Cup that it has been a key focus for our strategic planning roadmap in marketing for quite a long time – so once we actually got to the first match of the tournament, it felt like we’d been talking and planning for an incredibly long time.

EGR Marketing: With matches kicking off at lunchtime, mid-afternoon and teatime, some felt that viewers (on ITV), and especially children, shouldn’t be bombarded with betting ads. Can you appreciate this sentiment? Are there generally too many pre-watershed betting ads around live sport?

AZ: Our industry most certainly needs to challenge our perception and image, while answering criticism head-on with serious actions and intent. This has always been one of the key challenges in developing an effective regulatory system for TV advertising.  Restricting the number of pre-watershed adverts is something we would be fully supportive of, but it would have to be agreed across the industry in order for it to be effective.

Organisations such as the Senet Group, which Ladbrokes and Coral were founding members of, have a huge part to play on ensuring we uphold the integrity of UK betting brands. Betting is a sports entertainment product enjoyed by millions of people across the UK every year but in saying that, we need to have an extreme focus and unwavering commitment to protect the vulnerable portion of that audience.

Responsible gambling and the integrity of the Ladbrokes and Coral brands sits at the top of our agenda at the moment with a keen focus on pro-active self-regulation and supporting the responsible gambling message with committed annual marketing spend. We have in the past and will continue to prioritise our brand ethics above profit and revenue. As a central focus of our corporate identity and over the next 12 months, this message will be heavily reflected in our marketing strategy.

EGR Marketing: Italy looks set to ban gambling advertising, but how hard would a similar ban in the UK affect Ladbrokes Coral Group and the industry as a whole?

AZ: Hypothetically for brands with a retail/omni presence, like William Hill, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Coral and Betfred, a pre-watershed betting ad ban would hold more upside when compared to digital-only brands. High street presence would be a significant enabler for our brands to still hold strong presence with the consumer – effectively it could be digital-only brands who feel the greatest effect from this type of change.

Also, brands without an advanced digital marketing strategy could rapidly get left behind, should their marketing focus predominantly on offline advertising. In that scenario, any digital deficiencies in a business would be more widely exposed by a regulation change on TV betting advertisements. It would also create less advertising space for new digital brands to emerge, as TV advertising allows the greatest opportunity for smaller brands to increase their share of voice.

So, effectively this may have a negative effect for the consumer in terms of choice and competitiveness in offering, as many smaller brands will struggle to grow in that environment to not only launch, but to sustain their presence. Although a regulatory change as big as this holds so many unknowns, it’s very difficult to be wholly accurate about potential shifts in the market, but it will create huge ripples across the industry should it ever become a reality.

EGR Marketing: How challenging is it handling marketing efforts for two huge brands like Ladbrokes and Coral at the same time? Do you ever worry that while working on a campaign for one operator you are neglecting the other?

AZ: It’s a strategic priority across the GVC group, given the sheer volume of big brands within the global business, that each brand, especially those the size of Ladbrokes and Coral, are allowed their own oxygen and focus on their own respective growth journeys.

There may be the perception that a dual-brand strategy exists but the reality is that we want all our brands to live to their fullest potential.

We make decisions around what is right for Coral and what is right for Ladbrokes in their own individual rights and agnostic of any group relationships or dependencies. In an industry where M&A activity has reached fever pitch, the role brand has to play in business profit is even more apparent – customers don’t care about what group owns which brand but only the customer experience they get from their preferred brand.”