To look ahead, we spoke to Julie Doleman, Entain’s UK Digital Managing Director, to hear about her plans to put Ladbrokes at the heart of the action and reach an ever more diverse range of fans.
This World Cup will be different from any that have gone before it and with that is a great opportunity for us to reach a new audience of recreational players” says Doleman. “We want to offer a our customers a much broader, richer entertainment experience than has traditionally been the case with sports betting.
This approach is reflected in Ladbrokes’ We Play Together advertising campaign, the third instalment of which launched in September. The latest execution of the cinematic campaign employs cutting-edge VFX-motion capture technology to recreate the iconic running montage from the first Rocky film. Original footage of Sylvester Stallone is intercut with a range of over 250 athletic characters and fans from across the sporting spectrum. A special World Cup cut of the campaign is also being produced.
“We Play Together is all about shared experiences making the Ladbrokes brand truly engaging and inclusive. It is about fun and excitement and fundamentally about entertainment” Doleman added.
“But to be authentic, we have to deliver more than creative marketing, we have to make sure we provide our players with innovative and engaging products. That’s why we’re excited to be launching a brand new free-to-play game for the World Cup: Half Time Quiz.”
Half Time Quiz is a first for the betting and gaming industry, utilising live data feeds from the opening half of every World Cup match to produce an exclusive quiz based around all the action in the first 45 minutes. Players can compete for bragging rights by creating mini-leagues with their friends or see how they measure up to other Ladbrokes customers on the overall leader-boards.
Half Time Quiz is a first for the betting and gaming industry, utilising live data feeds from the opening half of every World Cup match to produce an exclusive quiz based around all the action in the first 45 minutes. Players can compete for bragging rights by creating mini-leagues with their friends or see how they measure up to other Ladbrokes customers on the overall leader-boards.
“Half Time Quiz is all about putting fun into football and engaging with fans in real time by providing them with a great entertaining experience. It’s never been done before and we believe it will help us reach a whole new audience, bringing people together and creating new moments of excitement.”
“The We Play Together campaign and Half Time Quiz are great examples of how Ladbrokes is evolving to offering a broader experience and we have much more to come. We have also introduced a new era of personalisation, enabling our customers to select their favourite team and then deliver them a richer exclusive offer tailored to for them.”
“The future of football is inclusive. We only have to look back to the recent Women’s Euros to see how successfully it can be at attracting new and more diverse audiences. That is exactly the future we want for Ladbrokes, and we can’t wait for the World Cup to kick-off so we can all play together!”.
Half Time Quiz will be trialled during Premier League fixtures over the coming weeks ahead of the official World Cup launch on 20 November.