Local brands fight back
Becky McMillan, director of marketing at Betpack.com, explains how local niche brands can flourish in the egaming market.
With industry press and commentary focused on consolidation and the creation of large online gaming brands, I thought it worthwhile to highlight our experience in setting up a niche online sports betting and gaming brand in the Irish market.
Betpack was launched in May 2010 to give a group of seven independent Irish retail bookmakers a strong online betting and gaming proposition. The bookmakers, which operate 183 retail shops throughout Ireland and have more than 100 years of bookmaking experience, would never have launched a significant online business individually. But by coming together and creating Betpack.com they have been able to recreate a product they offer at a retail level to an online audience. This has enabled these seven bookmakers to have an online presence that can realistically compete with more established players in the Irish market.
And despite strong competition, we believe our performance since launch highlights the fact that there is still a place for local niche brands to flourish in the online gambling market.
Since May, we have grown our player numbers aggressively and now have more than 10,000 players and are well on our way to exceeding our year-end targets. Our growth in player numbers and revenues has been driven by a focused online and offline marketing campaign and by activity targeting the local market where we have a retail presence.
Leveraging the bookmakers’ “bricks and mortar” presence “ BetPack.com-branded shops are in every major town in Ireland “ has been a key factor in our success. While all 183 shops have continued to operate under their own brands, we have put heavy Betpack brand collateral in these shops and all seven independent bookmakers have been key in driving new players to our site.
The business model allows retail outlets to act as affiliates to the website and it has been extremely successful to date. Other advantages include the ability to deposit and withdraw to online accounts over the counter in retail shops, while the brand equity of the individual partners gives the brand more credibility with Irish customers.
Looking to the future, we plan to continue to grow player numbers aggressively. To date, we have received very positive feedback from players that appreciate the fact we are a local, established online betting brand.
In our view, many of our international competitors cannot offer such a strong, localised offering, which bodes well for our future. A creditable local brand can fight back against the move for consolidation in the online gaming space.