Well we have taken a look of some of the previous World Cup ads, let’s focus on some of the new ones that appeared and created an impact.

One from Adidas and the German National team

One from Nike and the much famous now “Write the Future” ad

One from Puma straight from Africa

A brilliant one from Carlsberg, You have to admit even if you aren’t English…you like it!

Everyone has done their part and even if you can’t see the difference there is in the targeted market and customers of each company. The ads are there for a specific reason and they want to attract the customers and create the exact tension and expectation that is needed for such kind of tournaments.

Professor Simon Chadwick has a really nice article in his block where he is explaining the exact target market of adidas, nike and puma. He is basically analysing how adidas is targeting the mainstream audience and with what ways, nike the different –revolutionaries and how puma is trying to “steal” a part of the pie.  If you read you will realise any hidden messages behind the ads that you will see in the future.

The world cup is almost there. Enjoy it.

The France National Assembly recently has voted in favour of a bill to legalise online gambling, preparing to open up the market to the gaming companies around the world. Ideally I believe that is the best move to make but who will believe me. After all I am working for a gaming company.

However, trying to think the advantages and the disadvantages in this story, the gaming industry is one of the few that keeps making profits in times of recession expanding all over the world and providing business opportunities to millions of people. Why governments don’t try to take advantage of it?

The examples of Gibraltar and Malta are characteristic of how a community can gain from the booming of the gaming industry and provide with work placements to the people.

France has finally opened up and companies like Ladbrokes, William Hill, Betfair are all gearing up to take the best spot in the market. Despite that I think there are bigger markets in the minds of the CEO’s that they are dreaming. Obviously in America everyone is waiting opening up United States but in Europe, Greece , Spain and Turkey will be next in line. Slowly I feel that those markets will be forced to open in order to create more opportunities and cash flow towards the government.

There will be always those people that will shout that gambling will destroy families, society’s and people …they always do…but the truth is legalizing it and putting gaming companies under a law is much better than what exists right now….which is nothing.

I always believed that Gambling is the way to save Greece from economic destruction. Maybe I am wrong but listen to this… Right now my country is on the verge of bankruptcy asking for money. Well, I am not politician and not in to economics but what if…they legalized gambling and let companies to come into Greece and open up Betting shops or work online. In order to get a license they should pass from some tests of course to see that they are respected companies but the most important is that they should have offices in Greece. A small office of 30-100 people,  most probably the marketing department for the country and maybe customer service. Of course they would be taxed for there profits , money that the Greek government would take and until now, is loosing.

I bet that the fact they are earning a lot of money until now from the greek betting company opap but also because of other political reasons that is not possible now but eventually it will happen as to most other countries. Well, again my view on this matter is not credible as I said as I already work in the gaming industry but is it so wrong?  I don’t think so…but then again I am not the Greek Prime minister…thank god J

They are really lucky in Sky tv having all those Champions League games, a real privilege to everyone that has the ability to see them. I am fortunate enough to be able to have sky and now Virgin for all the last 3 to 4 years more or less. The enjoyment I get watching all those games in my living room and relaxing after a hard day at work is difficult to find something else to match it… (my girlfriend will really be angry right now..)

Ofcom recently told Sky tv that it must cut the price it charges rival cable, terrestrial and internet broadcasters to show its premium sports channels. Obviously the answer a no so big you could hear it from Australia. Basically what Ofcom said was that if Sky opened up there program that would give the opportunity for more platforms to appear and more opportunities to the customers but also more profits for the Broadcaster as they would have the opportunity to penetrate more houses easily with there program.

However, no one wants ever to be told what to do, so sky immediately reacted that no one needs such intervention in the industry and that the customers are well served having quite a few choices… mmm..

Well I have to say that there aren’t too many choices around when you want to see the Premier League in UK. Sky tv has the rights and rightly so since they paid enormous amount of money but they have other ways to take advantage of their audience and increase there profits. The HD channels have arrives long time now and soon the new trend will be channels in 3D.

They will still be able to offer Premier League in 3D and other gadgets to the ones that decide to pay something more to get the sky box than any other one. Eventually this will happen and they know it at Sky. They will still have the privileges from offering exclusive sports shows and the channels will penetrate in more houses now than ever before…by the time the whole legal fights finish they will be able to offer better products like 3D and HD channels that will give even more sales to there platform rather than others.

In generall whenever a company tries to get excessive power … I always believe that it needs someone to hold them down a little bit. It happened with Microsoft before…it is happening with Google right now and its happening with BSkyB right now. They will always complain that they were the ones that spend all the money and had the innovations but they will continue to have more innovations to sell…don’t feel sorry about them.

The point is that all these will give more choices for the consumers and that is always good. From Marketing perspective when you give more choices to the customers to buy your product then then its almost sure that your profits will increase…except if you have a bad product… When your product is Live Games from Champions league and Messi…then there is no question about it…

The whole movement kept me away from blogging but kept getting informed about all the interesting news of our world. The only way that you could miss the presentation of the new Ipad is if you were from another planet…

Months of rumours and speculations led to the presentation of the new gadget by Steve Jobs where he revealed the new product. IPad inteds to cover the space between the Iphone and a notebook giving the abilities to the customers to do whatever they want (games , read books , surf the net) in a small tablet computer.

I don’t think its important to analyze so much the product but the rumours that came out after the presentation and the … “war” that appears to have started between Google and Apple.

The product maybe perfect, maybe not. John Batelle in his blog, still thinks that the IPad will disappoint but with the buzz that has already being created in the world its hard to believe how this will happen. Apple is perfect in marketing there products and creating needs to the people without us knowing …

However, one of the most interesting things that I read today was rumours about Steve Jobs directly attacking Google and there “Don’t Be Evil” strategy. “They  want to kill Iphone” said the ceo of Apple in a conversation with his employees.  Those rumours are spread around the net and many more updates are coming every hour. In Daring Fireball , it was written that a member of the audience reported that the actual words of Jobs regarding the “Don’t be Evil” of google were “Don’t be Evil is a load of Crap”.  Where there is smoke..there is fire…

His old enemy.. Bill Gates in an interview stated for the “Google China Censorship” issue that if you operate in a certain country you must learn to respect the laws of the country you are in…or else don’t do it… Well he has a point on this one.

You knew the rules of the game from the first time…so why you are unhappy now? If you go to different countries and surf the net there are restrictions everywhere up until now…so why they are different than china? If they are so bad…then why negotiate with bad people that censor the net? Just simple questions that pass from my mind..

Nevertheless everything point out that all the generals are gathering there troops for a final face off. Google is on the one side…and the rest of the world (Apple/Microsoft) on the other… Its going to be really interesting to see those giants fighting for the number 1 position.   Until that, I just have to praise the way Apple is creating noise regarding there products before a big release and how they present them as a big necessity to everyone. The following video shows the best use of adjectives in a presentation. That’s how you make a kick ass presentation to the press

Some random thoughts about 2009 and 2010 after an article of  Michael Gray that inspired me…to salute 2009 like that…(or try to immitate him…a little..:) )

In betfair.gr.. I think the best achievement was the fact that we almost doubled the visitors of the Greek Blog stoixima.betfair.gr from August 09 and on.  There is no secret about that… increased links on good sites and really good high quality content always do the job on SEO.  That’s was the first advice I got when I started here… and we did… first writing articles by myself…then hiring really good writers from Greece. With the proper link building it wasn’t too difficult… of course there are other tricks also… but basic SEO is always the best….i think..:)

Other than that I think everyone in marketing world was trying to find ways how to exploit the social media and earn revenue from them. There are different opinions about that and 2010 will be an important year for all social media. One of them that will have to built up its brand and define its self will be twitter.  Recently in an interview to Kara Swisher of Boom Town , the co-founder of Twitter  Biz Stone said that for 2010 “ he wants people to think of Twitter much less as a microblogging service and much more as an “information network.” I think thats a good move as they try to stand out from the crowd…

Well that’s something we will be talking about in 2010 I guess…

Love them or hate them ..social media are here to stay ..and I think it’s a matter of trying to understand the best ways to use them as a marketer.  Am I right or wrong? We will see..

In general I think 2010 will be a really good year in all areas.  With the world cup on its way I think Football will be again the industry that people will invest and help the economies of the world get a little bit better. Every fan wants to see their national team over there and every prime minister also…as that means more money for investment in their countries, advertisments .. and money flowing to the country. But most of all…happy people….at least as long as the world cup lasts..

In another article I stated how important football is and how competitions like champions league bring so many revenues. The World Cup is so important for 2010 that…if you search “2010” in google…guess what is coming first? Hehehe yeap! 2010 is a football year and google agrees!

On the betting industry its always a special year. As many companies will put new products and try to exploit the hype of the World Cup in order to promote them. Maybe it will be the first time that we will have a significant progress in the state monopolies and countries will open there borders to the bookmakers. France is surely one….United States…I think we will wait more for them..

Either way I think the World Cup will monopolize the interest of the betting industry. You will see a lot of companies trying to merge in order to improve their positions and I believe it’s a matter of the big fish taking over the small … We had the recent example with the Wink bingo take over by 888 but also there are a lot of rumours every day about bwin and merger talks with Partygaming…

Not much to say now… There aren’t any other news this time of the year..and I was always bad in writing reviews…

A new year is coming and I hope it brings the best to all of you…and hopefully will make this planet everywhere a little bit better.

Happy new year!!

World Cup 2010 logo

The World Cup party has started in Friday with the draw of the groups in the final stage.  For my country (Greece) was more or less a repetition of the USA world cup as they drew in the same group with Argentina, Nigiria and South Korea.  On the other hand England had USA, Algeria and Slovenia. I think it should be an easy group to qualify for the hard working lions of Fabio Capelo , but then….you can never be so sure…

What caught my attention was the new advertising campaigns that some of the sponsors decided to run. Carlsberg launched a specific campaign specific for the draw saying that : ““If Carlsberg did the draw…..”, and show England grouped with the Vatican City, Lapland and Guatemala, while another group features Brazil, Germany, France and Spain”

Here is also a video from there last campaing in the previous world cup with the same theme.

This are the best times to watch the creative minds of many marketing agencies and companies to work, and sometimes come up with some great ideas. Lets take a look some of them.

World Cup perfect draw …for England.

visas ad…heading for south Africa

funny ad from BP

And one blast from the past….One of the bests I have ever seen.

Well …enjoy!

Different opinions were heard and it’s good to know what different people thing regarding online marketing.

I think what was more interesting from our side was to see how most of the teams were promoting the company using the different “ambassadors” they have.  One of the most interesting things was the promotions that the Irish team is doing with Google and the poker promotions from the countries of Eastern Europe.  Unfortunately the different Gambling Legislation that exists in the European Union means that different tactics are used which are not applicable always in other places.

What caused much more interest from my presentation was the expanding banner that we have promoting the Live Video product. I really believe that having an expanding banner is a beautiful way to enable your customers to become more active on a banner that –usually- they never take notice.

The banner says “live video football on your pc”  and then by clicking to each icon you can see the live games that are available on the live video product. This specific one brought some really good results achieving higher click through rates than any other.

However, the amount that it took me to get it “live” made it really difficult to even think promoting it in different placements and sites.  Unfortunately we had various problems with the ad server so by now its only live in one dimension providing nevertheless with acquisitions all the time.

What this proves to me is that banners that are interactive and look more like a “game” for the reader and not an ad, have more chances to get clicks and conversions. The catch is not to “fool” the customer making him think that it’s a part of the site and not an ad because when he realises that then you will probably lose him…

Live Video Banner

Times do change though and we have some new online expandable banners coming that hopefully give us a little bit boost. –not that we need it..:) -