SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Sky Bet has redesigned its platform as part of a new campaign to demonstrate its commitment to football fans.
‘For the fans’ was created in partnership with Grey London, which became the operator’s creative agency in March last year, and was tasked with developing its long-term strategic brand platform.
Leigh Peacock-Goodwin, Head of Brand and Sponsorship at Sky Bet, highlighted how repositioning a brand that has been so successful ‘always makes you think twice’.
“But,” she continued, “in a category that to your average customer seems to offer nothing different or distinctive, we knew we didn’t want to follow suit and needed to take a different stance.
“We’re well placed to understand what it’s like to be a fan. This is the start of a major shift for us as a business and we’re all fully behind it.”
Meanwhile, the operator unveiled its new long-term platform along with a 60-second TV advert, which is said to ‘highlight the thrill of betting’ while prioritising a modern fan experience.
In detail, the ad – which will be on TV, video on demand and social media – begins with a football fan gardening in a blue tracksuit, who says: “If I wasn’t a fan, I wouldn’t hate all things red just ’cause they’re red,” before we see a disappointed crowd watching football in a pub.
One punter is then seen saying: “If I wasn’t a fan, I wouldn’t be so torn betting against my team.”
Other scenes include a pub patron going undercover as a blue team fan by zipping up his jacket to hide his shirt, and three other fans sitting on a hill with their phones pinging with messages to “avoid their mates after getting done in the derby”.
Executive Creative Director at Grey London, David Wigglesworth, added: “We believe football is at its best when fans are at their best and when we put fans first, they’ll put us first. This philosophy has been at the heart of our Sky Bet’s transformation from betting first to fan first.
“We have been lucky enough to create a deep partnership with Sky Bet as we aim to build a long-term platform for the next five-plus years.
“This new platform will shine through in a variety of ways outside of just ads – through match-day activations, new product innovations that give fans more control, and unrivalled content partnerships.”
Furthermore, the ad then ends with the voiceover: “For fans, it’s more than a game. So we’re doing more for fans.”
It was last month that Sky Bet announced that Grey London has won its agency pitch to become the creative lead of its multi-million-pound UK advertising account.
The appointment saw Grey London replace incumbent Who Wot Why as lead creative agency of Sky Bet – a position held since 2018.
Winning the account, Grey London is now tasked with “developing a long-term strategic brand platform for Sky Bet to help set the future direction of the business and cement its position in the betting market”.
Sky Bet, which has sponsored the EFL for more than ten years, said the new brand positioning is a “natural next step to centre its purpose around making the fan experience the best it can be”.
The betting company concluded: “Today’s betting market is saturated with the same offers and betting tropes of epicness and entertainment.
“But bettors don’t identify as bettors, they fundamentally see themselves as fans of the sport and betting adds to that experience.”
