The Creative
The Stan James spot cleverly grabs the attention of viewers with hypnotic background music, typical of a car advert and a lingering focus on a dark horse within a dark background. It uses a gravelly voiceover to boldly tell the viewer that ‘without a bet on, there is no fun in horse racing.’
The strong call to action directs the viewer and immediately offers some value exchange by way of free bets. ‘Visit Stan James.com, bet £10, and get £20 in free bets. The best odds guaranteed, Stan James, for the bettors.’
Stan James’ ad targets more committed bettors instead of casual bettors who are often targeted via comedic ads such as Paddy Power’s. The ad wants to attract the horse racing bettors who are serious about their betting and are more likely to bet regularly.
The Media
Stan James is typical of most bookmakers in that they spend the majority of their money on live sports programming. Where they differ is that they buy less live football and more racing, snooker, tennis and golf. This tells us they are looking for an ABC1 male target, synonymous with the racing audience.
Sport dominates Stan James’ TV buying share, with Channel 4 and ITV4 getting a significant part of the overall delivery due to their coverage of racing on C4, and snooker, tennis and motorsport on ITV4.
Unlike other gaming categories, all bookmakers are beholden to sports deals. This means cost-per-visit (CpV) or spend calculations are harder to estimate. Furthermore, it is imperative to apply creativity where possible to TV buying plans. This approach can highlight their point of difference in a very saturated TV advertising environment for this sector.
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