Paddy power

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An overview An overview of the company/brand chosen and their activities and a situation analysis for the company/brand

Introduction

Paddy Power was founded in 1988 by three Irish book makers Steward Kenny, David Power and John Corcoran. With 40 betting shops between them they were determined to bring betting into the world of entertainment, and so Paddy Power was born.

Paddy Power put customers at the heart of their business, engaged them with pioneering innovations, and listened to them when they tell them what they think. In 2000 Paddy Power made its first appearance to online gambling with the launch of its website paddypower.com, taking up a leading position in online which they’ve held ever since. In 2002 Paddy Power opened their first shop in the UK.  The Paddy Power commitment to reinventing the betting shop as a place of entertainment seemed to catch on with punters – so they opened a few more. By 2014, they had 250 shops in the UK – more than in Ireland.

In 2004, again ahead of most of their rivals, they took to e-gaming with the launch of paddypowergames.com and paddypowercasino.com, and the following year they launched paddypowerpoker.com. With this they wondered how to announce it to the world, then realised that the answer was starkly obvious: to organise the world’s largest-ever strip poker game. By the time paddypowerbingo.com was unleashed in 2006 they had a fine range of e-gaming products to offer – and began to turn their minds to the big world beyond just Ireland and the UK.

They began their international expansion with Australia in 2009. They bought 51% stake of another betting company called Sportsbet.com.au. The following year they bought the rest of the shares and the company has been doing very well since. Also in 2009 they spotted a new opportunity for a business-to-business venture to share their cutting edge technology with partners overseas. Their first B2B partnership was with French betting company PMU, which is Europe’s largest betting organisation. And a partnership in Canada followed.

In 2010 it was all about the mobile as Paddy Power became the first bookmaker to have an app available in the app store. The app is reasonable for over half of Paddy Powers revenue. In May 2013 they celebrated their one millionth download of the app. Bulgarian-based games and software development firm Cayetano became part of Paddy Power when they bought it in 2011, adding them to the company has benefitted the product development and technology flair has enabled Paddy Power to lead the market. In 2012, they left their offices in Tallaght for the a brand new headquarters in Clonskeagh, Dublin. This was the year that the company expanded in to the online Italian market and launched the first-ever real-money casino app designed for Apple touch screen devices also. By 2013, they broke the world record for the largest painted sign in history: a wallaby cuddling a lion, which greeted British and Irish Lions players and fans at Melbourne airport in 2013. At the 2014 World Cup Paddy Power was the 7th most talked about brand on Twitter and Facebook. Today they are a very healthy and striving company with over 600 shops in the UK and Ireland, on the Irish stock exchange the price for one share is €112.40. Half of their revenue is generated from online activities.

Who the campaign is being targeted at and what the campaign objectives are.

Target Market

Paddy Powers target market is anyone who is legal to gamble (18+). However their main focus is targeting young to middle age men interested in sports. This is clear from how they use social media and the humour they use on it while sporting events are occurring for example the Euros qualifications which have been happening during the summer right through till now. Also every weekend when there is premier league matches on you can see a lot of activity on their Twitter and Facebook pages. With the release of paddypowerbingo.com and their other e-gaming products they have offered more to females in the market and so naturally females have become a part of their target market but mainly they focus on young to middle aged male sports fans.

Campaign Objectives

Paddy Powers objectives for their marketing campaigns is to make sure each campaign is unique, engaging and different. Since Paddy Power have so many different guerrilla marketing campaigns it was too difficult to choose a specific campaign.  Paddy Power want to gain free media coverage by the stunts they do to advertise and market their brand. They constantly are going viral for their stunts. One of their stunts was in Cheltenham in 2010. It was called "Paddy Power goes a bit Hollywood". Paddy Power erected a Hollywood style sign on Cleevehill at Cheltenham for the Gold Cup race. The stunt caused a lot of controversy but gained the attention of millions because there was so many media outlets at Cheltenham. The stunt went viral for free and people were talking about it for days. The sign was only up for a short time because they had no planning permission for the sign so it was subsequently removed. By doing these stunts they have gained a personality, which is one of their objectives. The brand has the personality of being wild, cheeky, bold and unexpected. By marketing the way they do people are talking about them all the time either to one another or on social media. They engage with their customers everyday and reply to tonnes of emails from customers and fans. Since they don't use traditional methods of advertising/marketing its hard to know what to expect next. They use the method of 'word of mouth' a lot to spread their brand name. One of their objectives is to spread the brand name by word of mouth. Customers are targeted at unexpected times and events. The marketing stunts always leave an impact on a person's mind. Which Paddy Power aim to do. Leaving a lasting impact is their objective of Paddy Power. They want to be noticed and they want people to know they are the best betting firm.

Key form of marketing communication used and the unique selling point being communicated through this mechanism. What is the message content/creative element of the advertising (this should be addressed whether the advertising is the core element or a support element of the campaign).

The key forms of marketing communication used is guerrilla marketing but they use  advertising through billboards too. Guerrilla marketing is an unconventional system of promotions on a very low budget, by relying on time, energy and imagination instead of big marketing budgets. Has evolved to include many aggressive and unconventional promotional methods (Taken from class notes). Paddy Powers unique selling point is that they market through unusual and unexpected ways. One of the ways in which they promoted their brand differently to any other brand was at the Brit awards in 2014. They choose to have two employees dress up as Daft Punk and go to the awards ceremony. At the awards they stripped off their pants where they were wearing Paddy Power underwear. This shows that they have a big imagination when it comes to marketing. Any traditional company would not pull off this kind of stunt. This stunt also would of cost very little. But by also promoting at this event it lead to Paddy Power hitting such a big audience and going viral.  Paddy Power is trying to show they are not just about sports betting and by hitting this event with surprise it showed that. Another unique selling point is that Paddy Power never have the same marketing stunt of anyone else but they also never do the same stunt as they have previously done themselves. Their stunts are so different and unusual. One of their stunts which no other brand has ever done was in 2007 at the Rugby World Cup. Paddy Power funded the Tongan rugby team to go to the Rugby World Cup. However in return they asked for two things. One of these was for a player called Epi Taione to change his name to Paddy Power but the IRB refused to change his name in the programme. The Tongan team were also asked by Paddy Power to dye 22 of their players hair green. However the team were banned from sending players on to the field sporting the green hair. Paddy Powers core unique selling point is humour. Everyone of their stunts or advertising schemes all have humour in them. Even the billboard stunts have humour involved. The stunts are funny and unpredictable. Paddy Power make people laugh. From Nicolas Bentender showing off his Paddy Power boxers after scoring to a giant green y fronts hot air balloon. The Paddy Power lucky pants. It took over 6 months to make the Hot Air Balloon. Paddy Power have used this balloon for competition winners at sporting events so the winners will have the best seats in the house. Another funny stunt was the grannies on the zebra crossing. One of the most complained ads in the U.K. The ad was about two grannies crossing the road with odds bubbles beside them. People were supposed to bet on who will get their first. The ad was funny but many didn't think so.  Humour is Paddy Powers main unique selling point. The other main selling points of Paddy Power is that they are unusual, unexpected, unconventional and never do the same as anyone else.

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