Promoted feature: Making a campaign count

Saint Patrick’s Day is fast approaching and, in our industry, the celebration of the life of Ireland’s foremost patron saint is big business.

While the seemingly endless variations on familiar themes and motifs continue to accumulate in the run up to the big day as game developers vie for a slice of the action, for operators the challenge is to present their players with a compelling proposition that mixes old slot favourites with fresh takes on four-leaf clover fun.

When putting together a seasonal campaign, therefore, it pays to have flexibility. An operator that can only offer a leaderboard-style competition, for example, using a single provider’s Irish-themed back catalogue, will potentially miss out on those players who prefer titles on a similar theme produced by rival studios. On the flip side, an operator that has the flexibility to create a St Patrick’s Day campaign featuring a wide range of providers casts a far wider net, engaging a broader sweep of player preferences.

The flexibility of offering content an operator chooses within a promotion that they can adapt to their particular needs is a powerful weapon in a highly competitive market. Sticking with the theme of gamification and retention tools, there is also another aspect where flexibility comes into play to confer an advantage – an area that has become a major focus for us at Pariplay over recent months.

When you look at some of the most successful casino sites in the industry, invariably they have a strong brand identity throughout the site and a unified look, adhering to a set of design rules and based around a theme that instils confidence in the player and puts them at ease. Therefore, why would an operator that has worked so hard to create a harmonic site that resonates with its audience be content to utilise engagement tools that break all the rules? If the brand is not consistent, then the promotion is not working to its maximum potential in selling the brand.

Extra control

We have received very positive feedback on the engagement tools we have created for operators. The next stage is to take those tools and develop them to incorporate a partner’s brand colours and logo, or allow them to control their own tournament lobby or leaderboard. Partners we work with have seen the additional value this approach brings and have collaborated in enhancing our tools, making them increasingly customisable and opening them up to new, creative ideas.

In the modern era, an operator’s offering has become very commoditised, and this leads to an environment where everyone is looking to find a competitive edge. From the perspective of a tier-one operator with the biggest pockets, they might well have the in-house resources to produce modern, flexible engagement tools of their own. For every other tier of operator that does not possess this capacity, or who is not in control of their own technology, then it is suppliers like Pariplay that can offer an out-of-the-box solution. This can be used to differentiate them from their rivals, adding an extra layer of gamification without the burden of time and resource-heavy development.

Our role, as an aggregation platform, is more than that of a mere middleman. We see ourselves as adding value not only to operators but also providers, enabling them to improve the marketing of their titles using our tools. Within our own platform, we have nurtured the development of smaller games studios through the Ignite development programme and have helped produce a series of success stories. Having seen their work at close quarters, we appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that go into the building of games and remote gaming servers (RGS). To expect growing independent studios to produce engagement tools as well is a step too far. Thankfully, we have seen a very positive response to our suite of engagement tools from a range of game providers, though, we accept it is important to adapt and improve in line with a rapidly evolving industry.

Our latest gamification tool to hit the market is Raffle Rocket, which aims to reach the parts of the market that other providers can’t. Its premise is that players take part in a time-bound raffle campaign, and as they keep playing (or winning, depending on how it is set up), virtual tickets are accumulated and prizes conferred following a prize draw. The feeling is that this is a more egalitarian solution than a leaderboard or tournament-style campaign, in which those players who gravitate to the prize positions tend to be those that spend the most. To date, the response to Raffle Rockets has been positive, with its combination of competition and fairness proving popular with a broad range of players.

St Patrick’s Day offers the chance for operators to step outside of the usual norms, to offer players of all types a compelling experience. It is no longer enough to simply stand still to stay ahead of the pack and the leading platform providers are working hard to provide engagement tools that can make all the difference for the most intrepid, creative brands.

Vladimir Pavlov is Pariplay’s VP product, where he leads product vision and strategy across the full suite of Pariplay products. He started his career in gaming in 2009, having held various positions in both B2C and B2B companies.