Marketing & Affiliates
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Marketing & Affiliates
HERE ARE THE 22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF MARKETING
LEADERSHIP
It’ s better to be first than it is to be better
EXTENSION
There’ s an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand
FOCUS The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’ s mind
RESOURCES
Without adequate funding an idea won’ t get off the ground
PERCEPTION
Marketing is not a battle of products, it’ s a battle of perceptions
DIVISION
Over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories
SACRIFICE
You have to give up something in order to get something
MIND It’ s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the market place
CANDOUR
When you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive
OPPOSITE If you’ re shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader
EXCLUSIVITY
Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’ s mind
SINGULARITY
In each situation, only one move will produce substantial results
DUALITY
In the long run, every market becomes a twohorse race
PERSPECTIVE
Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time
ACCELERATION
Successful programmes are not built on fads, they’ re built on trends
SUCCESS
Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure
LADDER
The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder
HYPE
The situation is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press
CATEGORY
If you can’ t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in
UNPREDICTABILITY
Unless you write your competitors’ plans, you can’ t predict the future
FAILURE Failure is to be expected and accepted and then over time things get more complex as the specifics of any enterprise develop. For example, somebody comes up with an idea for setting up a new online casino. The first big decision is: which market segment are they going to go for? Who are their competitors and how tough is that competition?
On a lower level there might be features and benefits the competition has which you might want to emulate. And then finally you’ ve got the practical operational side of the business to sort out.
INTELLIGENCE CENTRE
Nick’ s 24-article series on the 22 immutable laws of marketing in igaming will be available as part of the iGB Intelligence Centre subscriber offer at iGaming Business. com. To find out more and to subscribe, please contact: Danny Guevara on: + 44 20 7384 8115 or danny. guevara @ clarionevents. com
NEXT ISSUE
LEADERSHIP
We’ ll be looking at the importance of being first in a market category
At the very beginning of this whole process is a fundamental question: which market category are we going to take on? If you don’ t have any guiding rules about how market categories work, then you might end up making a huge strategic error. You might think it’ s time for another mainstream casino brand, a bit like 888. Maybe you think they don’ t have a large enough games library or some other feature is missing.
If you think of any marketing initiative, it’ s ultimately a bet. You’ re betting that something is going to work. Tabcorp made a huge bet on Sun Bets and had to extract itself from the deal, losing around £ 40m in termination costs. That’ s a bet which obviously went wrong. And why did it go wrong? In my opinion, it’ s because whoever decided to partner with The Sun made a bunch of assumptions about the power of the newspaper’ s brand to change player allegiance.
In other words, the category we call mainstream sports betting is locked up by the major incumbent brands. Had the decision-makers understood some of the laws of marketing, they would have realised mainstream betting was not the way forward. Instead, Sun Bets could have been a successful sub-category brand.
108 iGamingBusiness | Issue 112 | September / October 2018