Bullet Business

The entry of a number of traditional offline brands into the online bingo market has made it harder for white label operators to compete.

Such operators are looking at ways to attract or take customers away from the bigger brands.

There is still space in the UK market for white label bingo sites to succeed if they have the full co-operation of their network partner, says Michael Brady, CEO of Business Betting, the company behind UK Bingo.

At the same time, acknowledging the challenges, Brady says it is virtually impossible for white labels to compete with the “big boys” where software providers/managed service providers deliberately ensure an uneven playing field by inhibiting sign up bonuses and limiting the scope of CRM programmes.

In this context, it is imperative for white label operators to find ways to acquire customers somewhat below the radar of the big brands and perhaps even benefit parasitically from the success of the big brands in building the market.

“The perception amongst some customers is that smaller white label brands provide a more intimate and personalised experience than the larger brands. Sadly, this perception is not held by the majority and consolidation amongst once dominant white labels is inevitable,” added Brady.

bingoport.co.uk’s Scott Logan said, “We see our role as a third party aggregator between the player and the operator.  We can provide information about the best sign up offers and promotions out there at any given time. These offline brands have many competitive advantages, but they still need to prove to players that they are able to provide a gaming experience that is up to (or on) par with the best in the business.”  

Logan added that some are doing it well and some are not.

“Eventually in the long term, the players will decide and normally use sites like ours as a valuable resource to compare bingo sites and promotions,” he said.

The sector is witnessing steady progress in this arena.

For instance, PartyGaming has already shared it is planning additional sign-ups from corporate white labels and services partners in 2009. PartyGaming believes that considering the prevailing macro and micro economic environments, it needs to derive maximum value from all of its assets and resources.

The company signed an exclusive agreement to create a bingo and casino service for DM plc, the AIM-listed direct marketing group, in March this year. For PartyGaming, this was its second white label agreement this year (it had earlier signed up with CIRSA to explore and develop online gaming opportunities in Spanish speaking countries).

Underlining the significance of such efforts, the company in its annual results stated its white label partnership with ITV helped to drive bingo sign-ups on the back of Bingo Night Live. This was a major factor behind the quadrupling of bingo sign-ups.


Differentiated offering

For its part, UK Bingo has decided to introduce a time limited bespoke sign up bonus, which normally isn’t the preserve of a white label site on a shared network.

“Frankly, anything we can do to boost acquisition, will be seized upon,” said Brady.  

“Whilst our enhanced bonus was an improvement, it remained profoundly uncompetitive in the wider sense and thus would and did only have a marginal impact on acquisition,” he added. The positive conclusion is that improvements will be seen in acquisitions where the network operators enable white labels to be even vaguely competitive with their own core networks and brands.

In another interesting move, a white label online bingo site chose to use an SMS-based system to send balance alerts and other marketing messages to its existing users.

Brady feels there is a mid-term window of opportunity to communicate via SMS before customers rapidly become immune to such intrusive communication.

In an environment where marketers find it increasingly difficult to get customers to open promotional emails, there may well be scope to communicate short messages about an online service via mobile.

Balance alerts, jackpot alerts and time-limited prizes are three areas which are clearly suited to a more instantaneous communication tool, according to Brady.

“However, there is often a disconnect between the message and the capacity to then act upon that message. The true power of mobile communication will be realised when the customer can act upon the message impulsively and instantly through the device they receive that message on,” added Brady.

Because online bingo is such a social game, it’s difficult to find a practical use for mobile in the space, said Logan.  
 
“That said, sending balance details and other promotional information via mobile is a great way to get through the clutter right now.  Long term, it will not be an effective mechanism as people shy away from “SMS Spam”.  Our opinion is that only a handful of operators will get their mobile offerings right while most will waste a lot of money in the space.  This does not mean we necessarily expect operators to offer their games on mobile devices, but there are many other ways to leverage mobile to an operator’s advantage,” concluded Logan.

 

4th Annual Online Bingo Summit

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Contact: Ravi Virpal by email ravi@bulletbusiness.com