Purple Getting "Serious"

**** announce major marketing push in racing

(Copied and pasted from RP site)

WITH horseracing having to increasingly compete with other betting opportunities, **** have delivered some good news for the sport as they confirmed it remains the firm's number one product and will be the subject of a marketing push in the coming months.

****'s managing director Shane McLaughlin has announced a significant effort to build exchange business around a new programme of marketing, including race sponsorship next year.

He said: "This is a long-term initiative and is supported by a ‘Serious About Sport' campaign that builds on a ‘Serious About Horses' TV advert that has been running during the Morning Line on Channel 4 this year."

Dubliner McLaughlin, 37, has been with **** for six years after a spell with ****. He was appointed **** MD this year.

"I've been with **** from the pre-acquisition, Dermot Desmond stage through the purchase and integration with Ladbrokes," he said. "What Ladbrokes bought remains an exciting opportunity and **** is now an established portfolio brand and product in Ladbrokes' wider digital offering.

"We've signed up a couple of brand ambassadors in Hayley Turner [racing] and Tony Cascarino [football]. Both provide weekly columns for our customers that are proving popular.

"We will also be investing further to build our brand profile in racing in particular. Perhaps unusually in this marketplace, horseracing remains our main offering and although we have a range of other sports markets, we're bucking the trend by saying racing is our number one."

McLaughlin described ****'s campaign as "a phased approach to build liquidity and the appeal of ****".

He added: "A key element is just two per cent commission for customers making offers - it's not volume-based either, small-stake players enjoy the same benefit and the idea is to help get markets moving.

"With **** we are very clear we're an exchange first, whereas Betfair [the market leader] has successfully evolved into a broader fixed-odds business.

"Of course ****, as part of Ladbrokes, already enjoys big company synergy, with the advantage of a Ladbrokes-branded exchange bringing access to the much larger Ladbrokes customer base, with pooled liquidity with **** markets."

With Betfair imposing a significant premium charge on big professional winners, said to be up to 60 per cent in extreme cases, McLaughlin said: "We don't have a premium charge so our take from the exchange pool is far less [five per cent maximum] with more going to winning customers."

McLaughlin, who described exchange customers as "passionate and demanding", is seeking to develop new products, including a **** SP.

He said: "We've noted Betfair customers like the idea of having a bet guaranteed by reverting to an SP if a bet isn't matched - they prefer action around a solid price.

"Given we already have the algorithms available calculating existing multiple bets, it's a relatively small step for us."

**** have a good relationship with on-course bookmakers that gives them a core liquidity and McLaughlin explained the **** SP would not be an effort to compete with or replace the ring's SP.

"That's a different market and our customers use the SP in a different way, it's a fail-safe for them not getting their bet matched," he said.