Unibet’s strategy for leveraging UEFA Euro 2016 was a content led, YouTube focused approach in the form of a campaign called #LuckIsNoCoincidence.
The intent behind the campaign strategy was to wrong-foot the opposition to achieve a competitive advantage by turning conventional betting marketing on its head
While its competitors invested heavily in major campaigns that included pricy media plans led by television ads for offers and promotions, Unibet aimed to forge deeper fan connections through a YouTube led approach.
Working with our creative agency Karmarama, the idea behind the campaign was to help customers to win by advising football fans about how to make a winning bet “by sharing insights about how various factors influence the performance of footballers and teams”.
The aim was to ensure that the difference in the number of customers acquired when multiplied across the globe would make up for the increased amount we gave away to those we helped win.
YouTube was chosen as the primary channel as the marketers felt confident it would reach “young, passionate fans” who wanted to fully immerse themselves in content that reflected their enthusiasm and decided the best delivery platform was video.
The team created a seven-part YouTube series featuring acclaimed former athletes, gambling experts and influencers (from in-house experts and former player turned commentator Jermaine Jenas to the F2Freestylers) to create content around data, science and sport.
It covered themes such as reviewing the widely held belief that playing at home would be too much pressure for the host, or that poor weather would suit a more direct team like Iceland and how extreme weather might affect performance.
Working with Jenas added an ‘instant recognisability’ factor, while partnering with the F2freestylers, whose Ultimate Soccer Skill YouTube channel has nearly 6.5 million subscribers, boosted reach amongst the target audience (and helped generate £7m of earned media).
Video episodes were edited to create shorter pieces of content to appeal to different segments: from regular betters to first time punters.
These included teasers placed contextually against pre- and post-match media stories in popular local media.
Comment:
Unibet’s marketers said many of the usual things about the campaign…..”we had to cut through the noise to capture attention and drive revenue….” and be “smarter and more effective than rivals who would spend big on television” etc.
But the brand also claims it reaped the rewards from the campaign with a return of £18.25 for every pound spent.
It claims to have succeeded across all key metrics: including brand engagement, equivalent media value, reach and commercial return.
Unprompted awareness of Unibet increased 363% in the UK versus control groups, while ‘view through’ rates (measured by dividing the number of completed views of a skippable ad divided by the number of initial impressions) across all markets averaged at 47% (according to Unruly).
Total watch time (the amount of time in aggregate that viewers watched the videos) was 65 million minutes – that’s 45,138 days – and our global share of voice increased by 40%.
In states that in “comparison with the World Cup in 2014, we opened 115% more new betting accounts and the deposit amount during the campaign period was 70% higher than the 2014 tournament and 265% more than Euro 2012. Loyalty also soared with a larger than average proportion of the customers acquired during Euro 2016 placing a second bet”.
These figures seem successful enough, but, of course, its hard to judge independently without knowing how good/bad the 2014 World Cup campaign it was comparing itself too?
Mind you, they do also say that ever since this campaign that run through the summer of 2016 the brand has increased investment in video content creation and that Unibet will extend this approach through a similar video led strategy based around a second YouTube content series for the World Cup 2018 in Russia.
So they must be fairly convinced they got the 2016 campaign right.
Links:
Unibet
https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialUnibet
https://www.facebook.com/UnibetUK
Karmarama
