## Competing Groups – Promotions & Collaborations – iGB
Zach Thomas-Aku talks with Charlotte Emery, Head of Branding at William Hill, who’s leveraging the power of football’s community and competition in their new advertising campaign.
**Competing Groups**
Let’s be truthful, the competition is what makes the game thrilling. It’s fantastic to celebrate scores, but there’s a unique feeling when you see the opposing supporters dejected.
You could call it a contrasting identity. To build a community, you need to define who you are, but even more importantly, who you’re not. The sense of unity is strong because of who you are, but it’s also strengthened by who you’re not.
**Base**
Charlotte Emery, Head of Branding at William Hill, has placed this strategy of emphasizing community and competition at the heart of their new season advertising campaign.
“We’re about to start a new football season, all the old rivalries will be back, and then we’ll have the first-ever winter World Cup. It’s a wild ride, going from competing with your friends to uniting with them, and then your rivals become your country,” Emery said.
“Then we go back to January, back to the team rivalries. It’s a really cool, different rhythm to talk about.”
For the past twelve months, the promotional effort has incorporated many of the same English football components as this year: the playing field, companions, charming Caroline, Jermaine Jenas – but the emphasis has been more private and individual, mirroring the theme of the UK’s gradual departure from the challenging confinement.
“What we’re commemorating is a deeper sense of unity – we’ve emerged from lockdown, and we simply wanted to remind people how enjoyable it is to be together, and sports and games are a part of that, but it’s more about those bonds of camaraderie, coming back together, those old quips you always share, like the jokes about those individuals moving the vehicle,” she stated.
Magnificent
The key term this time around is “magnificent,” and the feeling William Hill aims to generate is grand, bold, heroic, and celebratory.
“As we entered this year, we thought, ‘We’ve emerged from lockdown, we desire to capture the same positive sentiment, but now we want to celebrate ourselves, we’re about to have the best, most incredible, most magnificent football season ever,’” she said.
“We aimed to capture that feeling surrounding football and genuinely demonstrate that we comprehend what it feels like to be a supporter. We discuss this season being amazing, magnificent, because we’ve just come off the back of the Lionesses’ best-ever European Championship.”
Thats why we declare this season is extraordinary, the sport itself is extraordinary, but this season is more like there will be, and there already are, some incredible extraordinary narratives, like the Lionesses.
We desire to capture that feeling in our work and promotion. So we developed a collection of advertisements and resources that discuss the extraordinary nature of football.
The most recent feature of this campaign is a greater emphasis on the variety of football.
We brought back some of the friend groups from last year’s campaign, and we also introduced some new characters, because we want to make sure we truly reflect the variety of football.
So we have a grandfather and his granddaughter, who is in her twenties, and you can sense that this is something they’ve been doing together for a long time.
The Tower on the Hill
William Hill’s brand strength comes largely from its presence on the main street. Through its chain of physical betting shops, the brand has become a very noticeable brand in the UK betting industry.
“I believe the strength of our brand lies in our presence on the main street – retail gives us a high level of recognition. We are an established brand, and while we don’t like to dwell on the past, we have been around for a long time.”
Emory thinks that the brand’s future will depend on whether the operator can use its strengths.
I am convinced that we will continue to expand and solidify our strong base. There is no question that we will progress and endeavor to establish a just and competitive playing field in the realm of football.
It is widely recognized that we possess a robust racing heritage, which is essential for our success. However, we also acknowledge that achieving triumph in football is paramount.
Positioning football as the core of the company’s strategy could be a shrewd move, because let’s be honest, competition is what makes it exciting.
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