NEWS / THE BRIEFING /
Q
&
A
MATT
COLEBOURNE
DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESSES
Q
Tell us about your revamped
Mirror Football betting app.
To be honest we are trying to
avoid the betting tag as right
from the get-go what we’ve tried to
do is focus on entertainment and fun
– that’s why all the suggested stakes
are relatively small and it’s also why
we wanted to do that tight integration
between content and betting.
We’ve got some great football
content and we were looking at how
we could get people to interact with
that and what do people do with
football content? They often place
small wagers, either with bookmakers
or friends, and that’s the kind of look
and feel we wanted to replicate.
A
Q
And was this timed so it
would be released ahead of
the football World Cup?
Sorry to equivocate but the
answer is both yes and no.
Having decided we were going to do
this, which was around July/August
last year, we said we’d like to have
this ready for the World Cup so it did
become an objective, but not initially.
Then the aim was to have it out
before the end of the domestic
season so we could get it tested and
be ready to roll for the World Cup.
A
Q
Will you be doing anything
special for the World Cup?
Any special markets?
We will probably put quite a lot
more betting opportunities in
there and we’ll try and make them
a bit more obscure and fun, for
instance red card markets and which
England player will miss a penalty.
The way we built the app means it
doesn’t need engineering.
A
Q
Will you be using your Mirror
Football Twitter page to
promote bets?
We don’t know yet. We are going
to promote the app and we want
to make sure we are being responsible
so we aren’t going to over-sell the
A
8
TRINITY MIRROR
betting side. The strapline for the app
is ‘seriously fun football’ which is what
the marketing will focus on.
Of course we need to generate
money as we don’t charge for all
the editorial content. We need to do
things like send journalists to football
matches, but the focus is to ensure
the app offers a fun user experience,
not encourage people to place bets.
ADVERTISING WATCHDOGS BEGIN
GAMBLING REVIEW
sThe UK’s advertising authorities
began an in-depth review into the
country’s gambling sector in May
as government concerns mount
over both the volume of online
gambling advertising and the
number of complaints received
by the Advertising Standards
Authority (ASA).
Stakeholders including the
UK Gambling Commission and
the Responsible Gambling
Trust will be invited to make
recommendations for the study,
with the results published by
the autumn and any changes
implemented by the end of 2014.
Q
You signed Paddy Power to
provide the betting platform.
Why did you not take the whitelabel route like fellow newspapers
the Guardian and the Sun?
We did think about it but
obviously the ramifications of
that is if you wanted to completely
white-label it you’d have to set up
a joint venture and gain a gambling
licence. Our view on that was very
much we are a media company and
we