Q&A: Spotlight Sports Group CMO on branding a newly reformed B2B betting business

Spotlight Sports Group launched in 2020 as the B2B-centric parent company of the Racing Post. The plan was to unveil the major brand repositioning at ICE of that year, and all went smoothly at the trade show until Covid-19 derailed the post-event marketing roadmap for the business.

This left the company searching for other ideas to market the brand and the disruption caused by the pandemic through March and April last year created some valuable time to reflect on strategy.

Below, Spotlight Sports Group CMO Gethin Evans talks to EGR Marketing about finding the “North Star” in a transformed betting business and how external agencies can provide a fresh outlook.

EGR Marketing: Why have you decided to do a marketing push for Spotlight Sports Group now?

Gethin Evans (GE): We launched Spotlight Sports Group ahead of ICE 2020. But because of Covid and the volatility in the sector and the business, we didn’t really get a chance to do the supporting campaign. We renamed the business and repositioned the business and now we need to make our existing and prospective B2B customers understand what we’re all about.

EGR Marketing: Did Covid disruption allow you to take a step back and take stock?

GE: We’re now clear on what our priorities are as a business having gone through a review during Covid. That allowed the product teams to say, okay, we need to go away and build this. Then we as a marketing team were able to say, okay, this is what the proposition is, but how do we turn that into something that makes sense for our users in the UK, the US and global international territories?

EGR Marketing: How did you bring clarity to the operating process of a new-look business?

GE: One way was to clarify the value proposition and effectively the “North Star” for our business, which is a hugely important exercise. Some businesses do it, some businesses don’t, but I think it’s hugely valuable to get everyone aligned, as that can really accelerate growth. We did that exercise with an agency called Rufus Leonard in October and November 2020 and they were great and helped us really laser in on what we wanted to be.

The second part was reviewing the product proposition. We looked at what we had and what we were offering to the sector, which led into the concept of Superfeed, which is the pre-play and in-play content across all sports in all languages.

EGR Marketing: How did the external agency help with that exercise?

GE: The work we did with the agency was really helpful. We did some research with people who work for bookmakers in the UK and Ireland and in America and they really helped us distil what our messaging was and distil how we build a clear campaign and a clear proposition for people in either product marketing or commercial roles who are looking for ways to add value to their customer experience.

EGR Marketing: What is Superfeed?

GE: Superfeed is a content engine and the breadth of the offering is really powerful. We know that most bettors have an organic opinion on Man City versus Liverpool, but the value can be found in an impartial opinion on a Belgian Jupiler Pro League game, for example. We achieve that through a mix of data capabilities and editorial.

EGR Marketing: How have you marketed the product with no trade shows?

GE: We’re operating across LinkedIn, we’re doing PPC and we’re doing digital campaigning for the first time across B2B. It’s now all about really good content marketing, which we’re planning to release in various forms over the next six to 12 weeks. All of those things will contribute to helping people understand what we do.